


I Want to Believe

by a_case_for_wonder



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AFTG Big Bang, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Asexual Character, Developing Friendships, Found Family, Other, x-files au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 16:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15733179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_case_for_wonder/pseuds/a_case_for_wonder
Summary: Aaron Minyard doesn't think he can be a doctor after all. Instead, he ends up joining the FBI. His assignment? Working with disgraced Bureau star Kevin Day in the so-called X-Files, pursuing cases involving supernatural and extraterrestrial phenomena.It's been two years, six months since the incident that destroyed Kevin Day's left hand forced him to run from New York to Quantico. He's found solace working in the X-Files, but he should have known he wouldn't be allowed to work alone forever.Aaron's made it this far in life clawing his way up from the bottom, and he no longer believes in anything he can't see and fix with his own hands. Kevin Day had it all - a world-class pedigree, a glittering career, fawning academics - and he's thrown it all away to chase aliens and monsters? Aaron can't imagine how they're ever going to work together. Kevin takes one look at his tiny, grumpy, no-field-experience new partner and agrees.Somehow, it might be exactly what both of them needed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What's that? Another incredibly niche AFTG Sci-Fi AU from yours truly? Yep. 
> 
> Welcome to my Kevin & Aaron X-Files AU. Thanks for joining me! You totally don't have to have seen the X-Files to read this fic, although if you've seen it you might get a few extra chuckles. I've had this idea swimming around in my brain for a while, so I'm glad I got to use the Big Bang to make it real! I was really interested in what Aaron and Kevin's friendship might look like away from the rest of the monsters' influence. Also I really wanted Aaron to say "I'm a medical doctor," so. 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy! Illustrations are by the amazing kitshunette who beautifully captured some of the scenes in this fic!!

Aaron’s tie is going to strangle him if he has to wear it for a minute longer, but at least his suit fits well. Thank god he’s still Andrew’s size, and that his brother left it in Columbia by mistake over the summer. Aaron would rather have died than ask to borrow a suit for his placement interview at twenty eight years old, but he’s only a couple of years out of the debt machine that is medical school; his only suit is the best polyester eighty dollars could buy. He refuses to show up to this looking like he did his clothes shopping at Wal-Mart. 

He twists the ring on his finger nervously and tries not to shift in his seat. He can hear Kate’s voice from their last phone call, You’re gonna knock ‘em dead, baby. It’s a small comfort, but his stomach is still in knots. 

“So, Mr. Minyard,” the gruff looking man across from his says – Wymack, he introduced himself as, FBI Assistant Director Wymack – “you have an impressive resume. Undergrad in three years, MD in four more, top marks in both. Your  
professors speak well of you, as do your advisors from your internship.” He pauses. 

“I’m sure any number of hospitals would have been happy to have you.” He looks keenly at Aaron over the top of the resume in his hands, and Aaron wonders suddenly if the crisp, expensive paper is too much, if it’s obvious he’s trying too hard. If Wymack saw past the nice, tailored suit to the secondhand shirt and ten-dollar tie. 

“What made you interested in a career with the FBI?” Wymack asks, shuffling the papers a bit – Aaron has the impression it’s mostly for his benefit, filling the silence for a minute while he searches for an answer that is honest but not damning. 

Aaron doesn’t say ‘It turns out I wasn’t really a people person,’ even though that’s true. He’d done his rotations, tried everything. And he’d loved it, in a way, he had. But he’d also hated it. He hated when people got sick or hurt and it was no one’s fault but their own. He hated when it was someone else’s fault and he couldn’t do a damn thing to keep them from going back. He hated when it was no one’s fault at all. 

He doesn’t say ‘If I kept working in a hospital I was going to fucking relapse.’ 

He’s been off the painkillers since he was sixteen, completely clean since he was twenty. It doesn’t matter – this is the FBI. They want to know everything about you. They want to know if you’ve ever smoked a joint, let alone seriously considered heroin when your mother’s opioid prescriptions started not to be enough for the both of you. 

He doesn’t say ‘for all the good I’ve been at saving people, I might as well be working on the dead.’

He takes a breath, straightens his shoulders, makes sure to look Wymack in the eye despite the disadvantage of his height. 

He says “I know how hard it is for one person to really make an impact. I saw the FBI as a place where I could distinguish myself.”

Wymack nods. If he senses anything underneath the smooth, interview-ready line, he doesn’t voice any objections to it. That’s half the reason Aaron is here anyway, instead of some field office on the other side of the country, farther away from the grip of a family that is both a lifeline and a noose. David Wymack has a bit of a reputation for taking on wayward cases. Aaron’s not a good enough liar, even to himself, not to recognize that he is one. 

“Well, we don’t really have a need for any more full time medical examiners at the moment,” Wymack says slowly, and Aaron’s heart sinks beneath the too-stiff cotton of his shirt. He knows what’s coming next. ‘we’ll keep your resume on file,’ and then you never hear from them again. All that for nothing.

“But,” Wymack continues, and Aaron’s eyes snap up, “we do have an opening for a field agent, and I think it would be beneficial to have someone with your expertise and…temperament.” 

A field agent? Aaron hadn’t even considered that that might be on the table. The most he’d hoped for was a passcode to the basement morgue, the chance to help reconcile the dead with their killers. But there is something odd about Wymack’s tone, something that says this isn’t going to be a typical job offer. 

“Oh?” is all he says. Wymack grimaces slightly. 

“Day needs a partner,” Wymack says, and holds up a hand before Aaron can get a word in edgewise. “He’s had an uptick in case volume, and he’s been using more Bureau resources than the other departments are willing to turn a blind eye on anymore. We need someone level-headed working with him, keeping him from wading too far into the deep end, you hear me?”

Aaron hears him, all right. He’s heard the rumors about Kevin Day. Once a shining star in the Bureau, he’d been a top investigator and profiler. He and his partner had been responsible for more successful violent crimes arrests than any other pair. People tended to give most of the credit to Riko Moriyama, since he was always the one in the spotlight, preening for the cameras at press conferences and interagency seminars, but they had risen together, young and brilliant and unstoppable.

Then there had been the falling out. Aaron doesn’t know what had happened, exactly, just that Day had some kind of accident and then left New York for Quantico, and has spent the last two years falling further and further into the so-called X-Files – cases that are more conspiracy than anything. Thinks his mom was murdered by aliens, or something. Obsessed with rumors of the inexplicable, supernatural, and especially the extraterrestrial.

‘Spook,’ they call him, in less charitable circles. 

“You want me to spy on him for you,” Aaron realizes, folding his arms. He was flattered there, for a minute, but not anymore. “tattle to your paper-pushing buddies about his crazy ideas, whether or not the resources he expends working on his cases are worth it.” 

Wymack’s mouth pulls a little at the tone, but he doesn’t deny it. 

“That’s about the run of it. Internal wants to do a six-month review to determine the viability of the X-Files. It’s October now, so that means you’d be there until April.” he admits. Then he fixes Aaron with a serious expression. “Look Minyard, I know you think you’re being put out to pasture before we even let you run a race, but that’s not what this is. Day’s a good, smart agent. Maybe the best we’ve got. Hell, if there’s anyone in this country that can solve the fucking cases he takes on, it’s him. 

“But you’re right, the money-men won’t keep filling up his accounts forever with so little to show for it. He claims he solves cases, but the answers he brings back? Well, we’d just like a second opinion.

“I can tell you haven’t had an easy time of it. You were on full scholarship all the way through school, and while I don’t doubt your talent, I can also tell you’re not like a lot of our agents. You’re not a pedigree.” 

“Is that supposed to mean I can’t solve regular cases?” Aaron barely keeps himself from snarling. For a minute he’s sure he ruined everything, but fuck it, if that’s what they think of him, maybe he doesn’t want this job anyway. Then Wymack just grins.

“Hell no, kid. It means you see the world like it is. You aren’t bogged down with the same ideological restrictions as the rest of them, preconceived notions about what the solutions are supposed to be. Who knows, maybe Day really is finding ghosts out there. If you tell me he is, maybe I’ll even believe you.” 

Aaron eyes him for a long moment. 

“I presume I’ll be reporting back to you?” 

“You presume right.”

Aaron waits for him to say more, for the other shoe to drop. Instead Wymack offers him a tired look, almost sad. 

“Day needs a partner,” he says again. “He’s an arrogant bastard but he’s fought tooth and nail for his independence, and he’s digging his own grave alone in that basement. I don’t do pity posts, Minyard. I really think you could be an asset here.”

Aaron twists his ring again, thinks about the night Kate proposed, way back in undergrad, how he’d almost said no; the way he’d said ‘I have nothing to offer you,’ and she’d flat-out refused to hear it. He thinks about the stack of forms on their kitchen counter, signing their names on line after line, promising to be better. To be exemplary. And then nothing, just waiting for a call. He needs this job, and he can do this. An assignment doesn’t mean forever. Hell, even if it’s bad it will only be six months. This is just a place to start. 

Aaron watches the autumn leaves drift by the small office window, and makes his decision. There are a thousand ways this could all go wrong, but it’s a hell of a lot more than nothing. Aaron loosens his tie, just a fraction.

“When do I start?”

 

//

 

Black hair, red blood, white bone. These are the colors that plague Kevin’s dreams. It’s no one’s fault at all that federal agents seem to favor red neck ties. It’s one man’s fault that every time a small, slim agent in red and black catches in the corner of his vision, Kevin feels like he can’t breathe. Wymack, at least, is tall and broad enough, moves loudly enough, that Kevin never mistakes him for the man who haunts his worst nightmares, even briefly. 

It doesn’t always matter. 

“I don’t need a partner,” Kevin says, for what feels like the hundredth time. It won’t matter any more, he realizes. This time, Wymack isn’t asking. 

“You do,” Wymack says, mild but firm. “But more importantly the Bureau needs you to have a partner. Someone to second you on case reports, be a witness in case things get screwy somewhere, you know how it is. We work in pairs for a reason ki- Kevin.” Wymack sighs, scrubbing a tired hand over his bald head. “Look, I think I found a good candidate for the position, okay? I’m interviewing him next week. Just…give it six months, okay? Six months and we can talk about it.” 

There’s more to this, something Wymack isn’t telling him. Then again, his Assistant Director might be the one person in the Bureau who Kevin really trusts. That’s not nothing.

Besides, it isn’t like Kevin didn’t see this coming. It’s been over two years – god, two and a half, actually, it barely seems possible – since the night his life changed forever. Since the night Riko had turned on him in the middle of a raid, face twisted with incomprehensible fury, and brought his gun down. Again. Again. Kevin still remembers it like it was yesterday. Red blood, white bone, his hand a shattered mess on a dirty warehouse floor. The smell of iron, plastic and motor oil deep in his nose. 

By the grace of some god, Wymack had been there to peel Kevin up out of the dirt and drag him to the hospital himself. Riko was suspended but technically Kevin was the only witness, and he had adamantly refused to press charges, so the details had never been made public. Somehow, people took to calling it an ‘accident.’ Kevin has never corrected them.

Since then, Wymack has let him retreat. Take his time. Come back to Quantico when the looming clutch of New York becomes too choking even with Riko gone. Choose his cases, things that required more searching through archives than chasing down suspects. 

Being here is what Kevin wants right now, what he needs. He feels close to his mother here. He feels safe. But it’s been over two years, and it stands to reason that Wymack is getting impatient, especially since Kevin’s cases have been wading further and further into what Wymack considers ‘the deep end.’ 

It’s just…Kevin can’t seem to help himself. Riko was always dismissive of his fascination with the supernatural. He’d laughed whenever Kevin tried to bring it up, sneered and beat him down and Kevin had quickly learned to keep those interests quiet, to bury them deep where Riko’s bruising hands couldn’t touch them. Now that Riko is gone, Kevin can’t seem to keep himself away any more. 

It’s been two years of this – Kevin holed up in this basement office, chasing down every odd story that catches his fancy. He still gets regular cases, of course. They wouldn’t keep paying him a salary if he didn’t, but he’s willing to admit that he spends more time than his bosses – even those of them who happen to be his father, and hadn’t that been an interesting conversation to have from a hospital bed? – would like on the X-Files. 

Kevin looks up at that father now, frowning down at him in an expression that, under the years of worn creases, is as much concern as anything. Bald head – half real, half shaved. Tattoos peaking out from unbuttoned cuffs when he moves his arms. A bulky ring on the middle finger of his left hand that is always present but Kevin has never asked about. Navy suit. White shirt. Green tie. He’s one of the few agents Kevin has met who doesn’t seem to favor politician’s colors. Kevin hasn’t seen him in a red tie in years. He wonders, in a moment of uncertain clarity, if that has been intentional. 

“Okay,” Kevin says. He thinks it, too, for emphasis. Okay. 

 

//

 

Two days after his interview with Assistant Director Wymack, Aaron is using his new keycard to open the door to office B5. He’d figured he’d be getting a keycard to the basement, but this really wasn’t what he’d had in mind. Inside the door he’s immediately greeted by towering stacks of…stuff. Newspapers. Books. Manila folders stuffed with papers. Stacks of photographs tied together with twine. Some of the stuff looks archival in quality. Some looks scavenged from other FBI case files, or maybe garbage cans – a couple of pieces look like they were painstakingly reassembled from paper shreds. It’s a mess.

“Hello?” Aaron tries. “Anybody here?” 

“Only the FBI’s most unwanted,” a voice answers from somewhere deeper in the room.

Aaron comes around the corner of the stacks into the main room and thinks of burn patterns – the way you can trace the starting point of a fire back to it’s origins by following the streaks of ash. If you traced the haphazard lean of the junk stacked on milk crates stacked on file cabinets, they would lead to the back of the room, to a corner where everything is crammed even tighter around a wooden desk and one clunky desktop computer, and the man crouched over it at the center of it all. 

The man looks up, and Aaron gets his first real look at Agent Kevin Day. 

He’s not what Aaron was expecting. Day looks less like an FBI agent than he does a college professor dressed up as one. His suit looks about three times as expensive as the new one Aaron is wearing, but hangs too wide on his tall frame. His hair was probably stylishly cut a month ago but in this moment it’s an overgrown mess, sticking up in odd places from hands scrubbing through the styling wax. 

“I’m Agent Aaron Minyard,” Aaron says, sticking out a hand. Day accepts the shake slowly, more confused than suspicious. His nails are neat and clean, but there are calluses and torn skin at the pads of his fingers, like he’s been picking and chewing at them but specifically avoiding the nails. Vain, Aaron thinks wryly, but not doing very well at it. 

“Agent Kevin Day,” Day responds, dropping Aaron’s hand, still like he’s a step behind. Aaron rolls his eyes and stuffs his hands into his pockets. 

“I’ve been assigned as your partner?” Aaron prompts. Some of the confusion eases, but Aaron isn’t sure what to make of the look that replaces it.

“I don’t-“ Day starts, then seems to think better of whatever it is he was going to say. “Wymack assigned you, right?”

“Yes,” Aaron says blandly. He hopes Day isn’t the type to need to be coddled – it’s really not his forte. That’s half the reason he left medicine, after all. “You’re racking up enough of a bill down here that they decided you needed someone to look after you. Guess I drew the short straw.” 

“Seems like that’s a thing for you,” Day says.

“Short jokes. Original.”

The fact that Day chooses that moment to stand is a little pointed for Aaron’s tastes, really. It turns out he’s tall – six foot or six-one, maybe, so Aaron is approximately eye level with his chest. It’s irritating. The movement does draw Aaron’s eyes up though, enough that they catch on the poster stuck to the wall with tack – a picture of a classic UFO flying low over a smooth horizon, the words ‘I Want to Believe’ printed below it in bold white type. 

“What’s your field of expertise?” Day asks, still looming. Aaron folds his arms across his chest. 

“I’m a medical doctor.” 

“What use is that to me?” Day says distastefully. “How much forensics did you study?”

“The usual amount.” He’d taken the classes, and done his morgue rotation, but he hadn’t specialized in it. The derisive sound Day makes says he knows exactly what Aaron means, and what he thinks of it. 

“Great. Wymack insists I take a partner, then he sticks me with some fresh meat doctor. Can you even shoot a gun?” 

Aaron did excellently in marksmanship, actually. He may not have studied criminology or law or forensics in school, but he went through the training courses same as everyone, and he graduated near the top of his class. He’s allowed to carry on the job, and he does. Is. It’s not like the hip holster is exactly subtle. 

“I can. Can you?” he asks, nodding toward Day’s left hand where it’s still clutched around the edge of the desk, the white scars obvious even in the bad florescent lighting. Everyone knows about the accident that crippled rising star Agent Kevin Day’s dominant hand. The fallout with his partner had been soon after, and he’s been chasing ghosts – aliens, whatever – in this basement ever since. 

Day’s glare is withering, but wounded underneath. Good, that’s what Aaron was going for. Day doesn’t say anything, but he taps the gun at his own hip with his right hand, with emphasis. He’s switched shooting hands, apparently. Aaron would be impressed if he wasn’t so annoyed. 

The silent standoff lasts only a few seconds longer before Day gives up, sitting heavily back into the cracked leather of his chair, bouncing a little with the way he just lets his whole body fall. His eyes close, and one hand comes up to rub at his face. There’s a small scar high on his left cheek, Aaron notices, like someone had started in on it with a knife. 

“Day,” Aaron starts.

“Kevin,” Day – Kevin – interrupts. He’s frowning like there’s a bad taste in his mouth, but his eyes are still closed. “Kevin is fine.”

“Whatever. Kevin. I don’t like the idea of babysitting the Bureau’s resident nut job either. But I need this job, and you-“ Aaron looks around the room again, the towering stacks of records, the empty cups of coffee littering the cramped desk, the corkboard covered in sheets of printed information written over in so much red felt pen they look bloodstained. 

“You need someone to drag you out into the real world once in a while. I don’t care if you decide to go chasing Count Dracula himself-“ a lie. Aaron very much does care. He does not want this assignment. He does not want his brand new career sullied by being tied to a known crazy person, but he’s here and he’s going to make the best of it “-as long as we leave this basement now and then. Didn’t anyone ever tell you fresh air and sunlight are necessary for human survival?”

That at least gets Kevin to open his eyes. 

“You’re the first, doctor,” he says dryly. “Fine. I guess I could use someone for autopsies and…backup. Get someone to find you a desk and find somewhere to shove it. Get yourself settled. I’ll introduce you to the work properly tomorrow.” 

There’s a beat where Kevin just stares at him, and then “Dracula isn’t real, you know.” 

Aaron lets out a breath. Jesus. “Obviously, Kevin, I was just-“

“But you know, the myth is based around real recorded stories from Eastern Europe. I have some of the primary resources around here somewhere. Well, copies, obviously. Can’t exactly afford fifteenth century texts on a government salary. Anyway, this famous Romanian Count, well, technically it wasn’t Romania yet…”

He’s up and about as he talks, bee-lining to a seemingly random stack of records and rifling through one of the file drawers, talking about some remote ancient fiefdom or other where the stories of the men who drank blood and turned to bats originated. When Aaron doesn’t interrupt, it turns into a tangent about similar stories all over the world. 

Aaron starts asking questions before he can quite stop himself. It’s not that be believes any of this bullshit. Cannibalism is as old as humanity, and people have been obsessed with the connection between life and blood for nearly as long. It would be more surprising if no one had ever tried drinking it, he tells Kevin. It doesn’t mean there are bat-men with fangs who can’t go out in sunlight. 

He doesn’t mean to turn it into a real conversation. Somehow it becomes one anyway, the search for whatever file Kevin was looking for abandoned in favor of Kevin telling Aaron about every separate culture with vampire-like stories he can think of, which turns out to be a great many. 

It’s not… comfortable, exactly. Kevin’s obsessive knowledge of the subject matter makes him unbelievably condescending. Aaron, for his part, is a man who has spent most of his life trying to feel worthy of being taken seriously, and is all too aware of the fact that he’s spending his first day as an FBI agent debating the existence of vampires in a basement with an agent nicknamed “Spook.” Kevin sneers, and Aaron snaps, and they both try and one up each other. 

It’s not comfortable, no, but after the family Aaron grew up with, it’s at least familiar.

At some point Kevin goes to look up some obscure passage in an archival newspaper and gets engrossed in reading it to himself instead, seeming to almost forget Aaron is there. Aaron checks his watch and is vaguely surprised to find it’s nearly one o’clock. 

“I’m gonna go see about that desk, and then grab some lunch,” he says, pulling Kevin from whatever vampire-y world he’d gotten lost in. 

“Oh,” Kevin says, checking the time as well. “Good. I’ll…I’ll make coffee.” 

The desk has arrived by the time Aaron is back from lunch. It’s small, metal, and looks like it was pulled from the back of storage. Kevin has gone back to his own corner, and makes no move to help as Aaron shoves at file cabinets and stacks of papers to make a tiny spot for it against the wall. But when Aaron comes back from the bathroom, there’s a fresh cup of coffee sitting on it that Kevin must have put there, even if he’s staring at his computer now and barely acknowledging Aaron’s presence. It’s more of an effort than Aaron had expected, honestly. 

He tries the coffee. It’s good, which he should have expected; Kevin’s clearly a snob. At least that’s one thing that won’t completely suck about this job. Aaron sits down at his desk, taking another considering look at the cluttered room and the strange man he’ll be sharing it with, and wearily hopes it won’t be the only one.

 

//

 

So apparently Kevin has a partner again now. Okay. Well, so be it. If dragging a weirdly tiny, grumpy doctor around with him is what it takes to make his work legit, so be it. Kevin has dealt with worse partners, after all. 

They’re on the plane headed toward their first case together when Kevin is finally curious enough to ask. Curious, and it might be relevant, so it’s worth asking. “So, Minyard, do you believe in extraterrestrials?” 

Aaron looks up slowly from the case file in his lap, squinting across the aisle at Kevin. Finally, he gives a small huff, resigned like he’s been expecting this sooner or later. Well, it’s not like Kevin isn’t self-aware. 

“Hypothetically?” Aaron says with a small shrug, “We could not be alone in the universe. Somewhere out there, I’m sure there’s some other kind of life.” 

“And?” Kevin prompts, because he can feel the hesitation.

“But,” Aaron corrects, with emphasis, “Do I think aliens have visited this planet? Do I think they’ve kidnapped humans, whisked them away in UFOs to preform weird probe tests on them? Hell no. 

“I mean, even if you discount the fuel problems, tyranny of the rocket equation and whatever the fuck else, you’d still be talking about beings that somehow lived long enough to make the journey from even the nearest galaxies which are _25,000 light years away_ and-“

“Traditionalist excuses,” Kevin dismisses. And they are, if especially thorough ones. “You practically just admitted there are almost unlimited potential life forms out in the far reaches of the universe that we could know nothing about, so-“

“That is not what I said-“

 _“So,”_ Kevin interrupts, maybe a little smugly, “who are you to say they don’t have the technology to get to us within a more reasonable time frame?” 

Aaron groans, head tipped wearily back into his seat, staring resolutely the ceiling of the cabin, looking like he’s praying for this flight to be over. As if he has anything to complain about – at least his tiny body fits in the seats properly. Kevin has had his knees pressed to the seat back in front of him for the last three hours straight. “I swear to god, Kevin, if you start talking about surfing black holes through time…”

“So you are aware of the theory?” 

Aaron closes his eyes and resolutely pulls the pair of noise-cancelling headphones from around his neck to over his ears. Kevin doesn’t laugh, but it’s a near thing. Not that Aaron would have known anyway. 

 

//

 

It’s pouring rain in Washington and Kevin Day is spray painting an “X” on the side of the road with a can of marking paint he apparently checked in his luggage, red pigment running off the asphalt into the grass. Their car went abruptly and completely dead moments after the radio went haywire, there is no cell service, and Aaron is realizing he really doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into. 

“We lost time!” Kevin shouts excitedly over the roar of the rain, shaking his wrist watch at Aaron. “Nine minutes, gone! It’s one of the prime indicators of a sight with paranormal and extraterrestrial potential!” 

“Time can’t disappear!” Aaron finds himself shouting because, honestly, what the fuck. “It’s a universal constant, Kevin!” 

Kevin has a look of determination on his face the borders uncannily on joy. Aaron has a feeling he’s going to learn to be wary of that expression. 

“Not in this zip code,” Kevin grins. Aaron checks his own watch. Sure enough, it seems to be ahead of where it should. Maybe by about nine minutes. Maybe by exactly that amount. Aaron’s stomach turns uneasily, the sensation almost lost to the continued downpour. Behind them, the car comes shuddering back to life. 

It’s after eleven by the time they get around to examining the bodies in the morgue, including the admittedly…unusual looking corpse from an excavated grave. There are two missed calls from Kate on his phone, but there’s a dead boy in the freezer of this room, and a mummified corpse that should just be a skeleton on the table in front of him, so he sends a hurried text instead – _sorry I missed you. case is crazy. what’s a good time tomorrow? love you._ Then, after a moment’s hesitation, Any news? He flicks the phone onto silent, tucks it away, and starts slicing into the abdomen.

“Subject is five foot, four inches in length, and weighs 98 pounds,” Aaron intones into his recorder as he goes through the preliminary steps of the autopsy. “Theoretically, this should be the body of Jeremy Adams, who died under unexplained circumstances five years ago, but the body seems too small even with decay and desiccation. Additionally, the strange shape of the remaining musculature and cranial features seem to suggest something… non-human. My best guess is something from the ape family. Possibly an orangutan.”

“An orangutan?” Kevin snorts quietly from the corner, and Aaron feels his hackles rise without really thinking about it. He holds his finger over the mute button on the recorder and glares. 

“Which one of us aced evolutionary biology, Day?” There’s probably no call for the kind of heat in his voice, but Aaron is tired, and this goddamn mummy on his table is not an alien, no matter what Kevin fucking Day keeps trying to imply. “Which one of us even took it?” 

Kevin holds up his hands in surrender, but the look on his face is somewhere between bored and scathing. It’s a good thing Aaron has a lot of practice ignoring that particular look from his own family – it barely even registers now. He turns back to the body, and his recording. 

“Okay, I have already taken a series of x-rays of the body, and they revealed a strange mass in the nasal cavity. I’m now slicing into the nasal passage of the body and…” Aaron feels himself trail off as he reaches in with the forceps, feels them grab on to where he knows the mass is with a distinctly metallic clink. He gives a small tug, and then the forceps are sliding out, and the thing grasped in them is not something that should be found in any body, human or orangutan. 

“The object is small and metallic,” Aaron intones flatly into the recorder, reaching for the kind of steady apathy that has never really been his own but he has always been able to imitate. His eyes dart between the thing clutched in the forceps and Kevin’s rapt, vindicated expression. “It is pill-shaped, about a centimeter and a half in length and weighs-” Aaron places it on a small scale “-six grams. There are no obvious markings to explain its origin or why it was located in the nasal passage of the subject.” 

Maybe it’s some kind of animal tracking chip? There’s no human medical device Aaron can think of that looks like this and would be hanging around someone’s nose. Which makes sense, because this is not a human body. It’s five foot four and its limbs and face are too long for its spine, although it’s hard to say, really, because the whole thing is curled in on itself and mummified to the point of being a block of wood. He turns off the recorder. 

“I can ask Kate about this. Uh, Katelyn, that is. My wife. She’s a vet,” Aaron offers, though it comes out kind of lamely. He can already hear Kate’s fond laughter in his head. _Yes, I’m a vet. I’m not a zookeeper, honey. What the hell should I know about apes?_

“I didn’t realize you were married,” Kevin says. 

“Seriously?” Aaron can’t help asking, unable to stop the bubble of annoyance in his gut. He knows he doesn’t really come off as a catch, or the marrying kind, but just because he doesn’t moon about Kate to his coworkers doesn’t mean his marriage isn’t the best part of his goddamn life and- Aaron takes a breath. It’s late, he’s wet and tired, and he’s getting more defensive than he needs to be. He snaps off his gloves to reveal the wedding ring he’s been wearing since day one. “Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of genius profiler?” 

Kevin at least has the good grace to look a little embarrassed. “Do you think she might be able to help?” he ventures. 

“I’ll ask, I was gonna call her in the morning anyway. I missed our usual time tonight, since we ran so late,” Aaron says, focusing back on on finishing his paperwork and packing up his tools. He bottles the little piece of metal, packs the papers and x-rays into a folder, and shoves the lot of it into a bag. 

“Glad I had the guys get us separate rooms,” Kevin says, overly nonchalant. “Wouldn’t want to interrupt your Skype sex date.”

Aaron snorts down at his bag. “Not gonna happen.” 

He doesn’t quiet realize what he’s said until Kevin says with a knowing grin, “What, you in the dog house?” 

Right, he has to – okay. “Nah,” he says, as casually as possible. “I’m just ace – asexual?” There’s a flash of recognition in Kevin’s eyes, thank god. “So I…don’t.” 

Kevin offers an awkward nod-shrug combination that isn’t nearly as casual as he probably means it to be. “Oh. Okay,” he says. It’s decent, as reactions go, but there’s still a lump of unease in Aaron’s stomach as he goes back to finishing packing his bag. He pulls his phone out of his pocket to put in there too, and sees another missed call and a text from Kate. 

_Wait-listed for the interview. Don’t take it too hard, Amy says it’s just part of the process. We’ll get there. They’re gonna love us, baby. Call tomorrow around 8am ur time? Love you too, good luck on ur case_

The lump in Aaron’s stomach re-solidifies, twists into a hard knot. _Wait listed._ He takes a deep breath. _Part of the process._ They’d known this would take months – years, maybe. He can’t get frustrated before they’re even out of the gate. He shoves the phone away, clenching his hands and trying not to let the frustration bleed onto his face. It’s fine. 

They’re most of the way to the hotel when Kevin breaks the silence. “Hey, you know I was just trying to make a joke. I didn’t mean to make it weird Minyard.” He sounds genuinely uncomfortable, and maybe genuinely sorry. It helps a little. 

“Whatever, Kevin.” 

It’s still raining. It’s the Pacific Northwest, so maybe it never stops, Aaron doesn’t know. He’s closer to California than he’s been in years and maybe that’s what this itch is under his skin. Kevin clears his throat uncomfortably as they pull up to the motel, clearly under the impression that since he somehow offended Aaron, he should keep trying to make polite conversation. 

“So, um…no kids then, I guess?” 

Aaron doesn’t even bother telling him to fuck off. Just grabs his bag and slams the car door behind himself. They already decided they were meeting up at nine. He doesn’t want to deal with Kevin Day again until morning. 

 

//

 

Kevin knows he isn’t the best at handling emotions, his or other people’s. He’s not the best with small talk, or parties, or office get-togethers or – hell, really any kind of social situation he can’t navigate firmly from Agent Mode. He knows. Thea’s said as much enough times, for one, about his still-stilted relationship with his father and his lack of friends among his co workers. ‘Emotionally constipated, but nothing we can’t fix,’ she’d say, teasing in that strange, focused way of hers, light and blunt at once. 

And true, he’s thirty two years old; he should probably take more responsibility for the way he interacts with people but… His now-partner sure as hell isn’t making it easy. 

Aaron Minyard is confusing. One, he’s strangely tiny, tinier than most of the women in Bureau, even, though definitely broader than them. It’s weird. Kevin isn’t sure he’s ever going to be used to it. But it’s not that, mostly. It’s that Aaron is angry enough to match Kevin on his worst days, but he holds that anger in a way that’s entirely unfamiliar. Kevin knows his own frustrated research spirals, remembers Riko’s jealous rages. Aaron’s anger is less focused, more all-encompassing. It’s like he’s angry at life itself. At what that life is or isn’t, Kevin can’t tell. He figures he’ll probably never know. 

It stops raining around three am. Kevin knows because he’s too jittery to sleep. He can’t stop thinking about that strange, twisted corpse in a teenage boy’s coffin, about the unidentifiable metal nub Aaron had pulled from its – his? – nose. About what it could all mean. Finally, around 3:30, he gives in and pulls on his sneakers, stepping out in to the cool, wet night. The light is still on in Aaron’s room next door and Kevin pauses, briefly considering asking if Aaron wants to come along. In the end he thinks better of it. He pulls up a route on his phone, puts in his headphones, and steps out into the wet October night to run until he’s exhausted enough to sleep. 

The next day they pay a visit to two of the classmates of some of the previous victims, both of whom have spend the interim years in a local psychiatric hospital. One, Ben, has been catatonic nearly the whole time. The other, Sally, is apparently prone to nervous breakdowns. Kevin feels profoundly out of his element surrounded by people in scrubs rather than suits. 

“Your medical training might actually come in handy today,” he tells Aaron, who is adjusting his tie for the fifth – sixth? – time since they arrived. Aaron just gives him a cool look. 

“My focus was in surgery, not psychiatry,” he says with force. Kevin rolls his eyes. 

“So, what, you’re determined to be even less helpful than usual today?” Come on, he’s trying to extend a fucking olive branch here, has been since last night, and all Aaron seems to want to do is bite his hand off. 

Despite the bad attitude he gives Kevin, Aaron straightens his tie one last time and leads the way in. He asks measured, intelligent questions of the nursing staff, using complex terminology Kevin never would have known to use. Eventually they are lead through to the room where Ben is lying in his bed, Sally nervously perched in her wheelchair by his side. They’re both wearing the same blue sweats, and there is a saline IV steadily dripping into Ben’s arm. Something odd flickers across Aaron’s face at the sight of them, a flash of queasiness. Kevin shakes hands with the nurse and by the time he glances back at Aaron, the look is gone.

“Hi Sally,” Aaron says, going over and extending his hand. She shakes it nervously. “Hi, Ben.” 

Kevin isn’t sure why he bothers, since Ben hasn’t responded to a human greeting in close to five years. Maybe it’s something the teach you in medical school. 

“Hi,” Sally responds quietly. She’s clutching a children’s book tightly in her pale hands. Kevin squints at the title. “Goodnight Moon.” 

“Is that book to read to Ben?” Aaron asks. There’s something odd about his tone, but Kevin can’t place it. 

“He likes it when I read to him,” Sally says. Kevin frowns. Aaron just nods as though in understanding. 

“What does he like you to read to him about?” Aaron asks, and Kevin realizes what he finds strange about his tone. He’s asking the question like it’s…normal. Like he’s making small talk with someone in the check out line, not asking a woman with an apparently limited grasp on reality what her catatonic friend likes to be read to about. 

“Space,” she answers, and Kevin feels himself stand up straighter. 

“What about space?” He asks quickly, only to have Sally shrink back, gaze darting between Ben, Aaron, and the nurse. Aaron turns, placing himself far enough into Kevin’s space as he does so that Kevin takes an involuntary step back. 

“You asked me to handle this,” Aaron whispers, tone deceptively even. “Let me.” He turns back to Sally, and Kevin doesn’t speak again until they are saying their goodbyes.

The car ride back is silent in a way that Kevin can feel his spine twisting in his back. He’s not prone to chatter, and he knows Aaron isn’t either, but this is different. The tension rolling off of Aaron in waves is dark and bitter in a way that reminds Kevin uncomfortably of his last partner. Aaron may be tiny, but Riko was always slight, and Kevin’s learned just how much he can be hurt even by someone who might not hold their own in a fist fight. He doesn’t think Aaron is violent, really, but the obvious anger is still putting Kevin on edge. 

“You were good, talking to her,” Kevin says at last, desperate to break the stifling silence, “with them.” Aaron shifts in his seat, gaze locked out the window. 

“They’re just people,” he says after a minute. His tone is neutral but something about the comment stings anyway, the implication that Kevin didn’t see Sally and Ben as people just because of their conditions. And well, maybe he had been a bit uncharitable, even if he thought he’d kept it mostly in his head. What was that they said about accusations, they wouldn’t hurt if there wasn’t a grain of truth in it? 

But there was something special about the way Aaron had conducted the interview in the hospital. Kevin just wishes he could put his finger on it. At any rate, it’s not what he really wants to talk to Aaron about. He takes a breath, keeping his hands relaxes on the wheel.

“Yeah, well. I’m not exactly great with people, if you hadn’t noticed,” he says, trying and sort of failing to keep his tone light. He clears his throat a little. “Actually, on that…I-“ he doesn’t really know what he was going to say. 

Aaron looks at him sidelong, shakes his head slightly. “Did you have a stroke, Day? I’m not really qualified to deal with those, you know,” he says, sounding almost – almost – amused, though of course it’s at Kevin’s expense. Kevin flexes his fingers on the wheel, shakes his head to clear it. 

“Fuck off I’m – I’m trying to apologize.”

“You’re what?” Aaron sounds genuinely surprised. 

Kevin shrugs. “I don’t know. My friends say I’m pretty bad at like, reading people. I know I pissed you off last night, and I want you to know that I’m not judging you, and I wasn’t trying to pry or like, be a dick about…whatever.” 

Kevin says all of this staring firmly ahead of himself at the road. For a moment, there is only the sound of the rain on the windshield. 

“That was the worst apology I have ever heard,” Aaron says at last. When Kevin risks a glance, Aaron’s expression is deadpan, but not angry. “Okay, actually, no, it isn’t. Not be a long shot. But it’s up there.” Kevin feels himself relax as some of the tension drains from the car. “Friends, huh? You mean you’ve actually managed to make them in the plural? Human ones?” 

It’s a little barbed, but Aaron couldn’t know that. Couldn’t know that for a long time, Kevin didn’t seek out friendship because he couldn’t. It’s not like Kevin is going to bring that up. He knows it’s more than a little fucked up, and it’s not like Aaron is likely to understand. 

“Yes, friends. Plural,” he says. 

“How many is plural?” Aaron asks, and it’s not like Kevin couldn’t just lie, but somehow…

“Two.” Kevin admits. The sound Aaron makes this time is definitely a laugh. “Oh, fuck off, Minyard. Like you’re such a ray of friendly sunshine. How many friends have you got? Including your wife.”

There’s a pause, and then Aaron sighs in what sounds like resignation. “Do family members count?” 

Kevin only has one living family member that he knows of. He and Wymack are many things to each other, maybe, but friends is definitely not one of them. “Sure, if you’re actually friends.” 

“Fine. I don’t know. Like…five?”

“How many of them are you related or married to?”

“…Three.” 

When Kevin glances over, there is a wry smile tugging at the corner of Aaron’s mouth, almost laughter. Suddenly, Kevin feels like laughing, too. 

“Christ, we’re a pair.”

Aaron is grinning. “So, what about you?”

Kevin feigns ignorance. “What about me what?”

“Of your entire two friends, how many are you related to or in a relationship with?”

“One,” Kevin admits, still smiling.

Even with the rain still pounding at the windshield, the rest of the ride feels lighter. 

 

//

 

They never really solve that first case. Not by Aaron’s estimation, anyway. They find Ben Miller standing in a clearing in the woods in the middle of the night, coma somehow lifted like a spell, and no one else dies. Kevin’s theory, because he is a maniac, is that kids from that class were abducted by aliens five years ago, and now the aliens – through Ben – have been re-abducting them one by one, as part of some kind of weird long term experiment. Now that Ben is awake, Kevin postulates, the danger is probably over. They go home. 

“So what you’re telling me,” Wymack squints at Aaron from behind his desk, glancing between him and the typed report, “is that a bunch of teenagers were abducted by aliens, who put trackers in their sinuses, then re-abducted them five years later with the help of their catatonic classmate? Is that what you’re telling me, Minyard?” 

“Put that way, it sounds crazy,” Aaron agrees, “but that’s not what my report says. I’ve given you verifiable facts, that’s all. How much of Kevin’s rambling you chose to see between the lines is on you.” 

The truth is, perhaps, somewhere in between the two, but Wymack just sighs in tired defeat, pinching his nose. “There’s no proof, Minyard,” he says. “Nothing here is a justifiable reason to keep the X Files operational.”

“We had three dead bodies,” Aaron argues. “Real harm was done here. That was worth trying to prevent. That was worth investigating.” 

“Three dead bodies and no physical evidence, somehow,” Wymack points out frustrated. 

He’s mostly right. Their luggage was mysteriously lost on the return flight, all of Aaron’s autopsy notes with it. The Bureau was reimbursing him for his possessions, but there is no way to replace the lost x-rays, flash drives of photographs, and recordings. The body of Jeremy Adams has already been re-buried, and Aaron has a feeling they’d be hard pressed to find a judge who would sign off on digging him up a second time. 

There is one thing left, though. Aaron reaches into one pocket and pulls out a small plastic vial, inside of which is a pill-shaped bit of metal. Wymack stares.

“I’ve had our best labs run tests on this,” Aaron says. “and I’m not drawing any conclusions, but they weren’t able to identify the metal. As far as we know, this material doesn’t exist.” He sets the vial down on the desk, an unmistakable offering.

Aaron stands, and Wymack does not. “Sir,” Aaron says, “I’m not asking you to believe him. I’m asking you to let us try to help people no one else is willing to listen to.”

Wymack’s gaze goes from annoyed to considering as he picks up the vial in careful fingers. Aaron knows what his own file looks like; he knows how this sounds. He’s not unwilling, anymore, to press it to his advantage when necessary. Hell, maybe it’s exactly what it sounds like anyway.

“All right,” Wymack says. He’s already picking up his phone, waving Aaron away. “I gave you six months. You’ve got five and a half to go. Get back to it.” 

It’s strange, the relief Aaron feels as he walks out of Wymack’s office. He’d thought he’d hate this job. Somehow, he’s started fighting for it. 

As he’s walking out of the office, Aaron’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He pulls it out to see a text from Kate. He opens it, heart in his throat. 

_We have a date for the interview!!_

Aaron feels himself smile to the empty hallway. 

 

//

 

They don’t solve their first case, though Kevin is sure of his theories. He expects Aaron to disappear, to request reassignment. He expects a return to smoldering solitude, to be left alone to chase ghosts until he is finally fired, or dead, or both.

Instead, Kevin walks into the basement the next Monday morning to find his thoroughly – if personally – organized stacks and boxes are everywhere. It’s chaos, like an explosion. And at the center of it, Aaron Minyard. Aaron Minyard, who apparently came back, cleared a bigger space for his desk, and now seems to be rearranging half of Kevin’s things. 

“I was looking for a file,” Aaron explains with a shrug when he catches the horrified look on Kevin’s face. His suit jacket is draped over a chair, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. “You are either going to have to explain how the fuck you have all this stuff organized in a way that actually lets me find things, or we are going to actually reorganize your shit. Like dude, I know you majored in history. I know you’ve heard of the Dewey decimal system, come the fuck on.”

It’s maybe the most surreal moment of Kevin’s life, certainly of their partnership so far: Aaron, here. Aaron, suggesting he organize the X-Files using the _Dewey Decimal System_. It’s…not the worst idea. “Uh,” Kevin says eloquently. “I, um… I didn’t figure you’d be back, actually.” 

Aaron stands and pushes himself up onto the edge of his desk. His feet don’t touch the floor, a fact Kevin absolutely isn’t going to bring up – right now. There’s a brief, thoughtful pause before he speaks. “They put me here for six months so I could give them a reason to shut you down, you know.”

Kevin has suspected as much, but the confession still makes his blood go a little cold. “Are you going to?” he can’t help asking.

Aaron shrugs a little, that same half grin on his face from when he was making fun of Kevin for his lack of friends in the car. He’s wearing a new shirt, and it fits a little better than his old ones. “Dunno, depends. I kind of like proving people wrong.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for descriptions of a dead body and also a panic attack

Things improve, after their first case, and soon enough Aaron settles into the X-Files like any other job. Time passes. By the time the new year rolls around he would go so far as to say he’s comfortable. 

Kevin is still a pompous ass, and probably always will be, but they’re at each other’s throats less. They take regular cases along with Kevin’s weird ones, and it turns out their styles complement each other. Kevin is all raw enthusiasm and obsessive, encyclopedic knowledge of everything from aliens to terror organizations to minutia of Bureau procedure. Aaron is more reserved, and less experienced by years, but he’s observes differently than Kevin, and is better at taking in information as it comes, rather than jumping to conclusions. He actually feels like he contributes. 

Arguing about weird supernatural theories becomes a kind of pastime. Aaron has never believed in vampires, or possessions, or extraterrestrials. He believes in the fucked up power of the human brain and plain old human weirdness. But Kevin seems to have an answer for everything, and is rarely deterred by the methodical holes Aaron pokes in his stories. If anything, it only focuses him, makes him more enthusiastic. 

They’re debating the ethics of cannibalism (specifically, whether or not part- or formerly-human cryptids preying on actual humans counts as cannibalism) when Aaron says “Hey, you got plans tomorrow night? Kate says you’re invited to dinner.” 

The look on Kevin’s face is one of genuine surprise. “Where?” he asks.

“Our place,” Aaron says. “Unless you want to do dinner in a McDonalds. We’re both still paying off med school debt.” 

“Oh,” Kevin says, still surprised, like he couldn’t imagine eating dinner in someone else’s home. He rubs at the back of his hand for a moment. “I don’t have plans, no. Should I…should I bring anything?” Aaron shrugs.

“We’ll have the food covered. You can bring a bottle of wine or whatever. Oh, and you said you had a girlfriend right?” He’s pretty sure Kevin had mentioned that. One of his two friends. “You could bring her, if you wanted.”

Kevin looks up from his hands. “Okay. Yeah, I’ll ask.” 

The girlfriend can’t make it, as it turns out, but Kevin comes over anyway. He’s overly formal with Katelyn at first, which is kind of hilarious, but he starts to relax once they break open the wine. Kate is staying sober, since she’s on call.

Aaron is privately grateful for the alcohol, but by halfway through the meal he wonders if he really needed to worry. Kate is, unsurprisingly, charming the pants off his partner, and Kevin is managing to hold up his part of the conversation like a semi-normal adult. He’s only talked about the X-Files in vague terms so far, focusing on their real cases when they’re talking shop, and seems genuinely interested in the wacky stories Kate tells about pet hijinks at the animal hospital. He hasn’t asked a single question about their relationship at all. 

“You know,” Katelyn says casually, a familiar glint in her eye, and Aaron has just enough time to think _oh no,_ “I’ve heard a lot of old stories about man-pigs and bigfoot are suspected to actually have been bears that escaped from circuses? They were so poorly treated they were skin and bones and a lot of their hair would fall off, so they would look like these weird, man-sized, bi-pedal pigs, just wandering through the forest by the train tracks.” 

She’s grinning, beautiful in the warm light of the kitchen reflecting off the red-brown of her hair, and Aaron loves her more than anything in the world but she does not know what she just started. 

“That’s definitely true,” Kevin says earnestly. “But it doesn’t discount other sightings in regions where bears aren’t prevalent and wouldn’t have wandered. For example there are a lot of stories from the alps where…”

Aaron meets his wife’s eyes pointedly over his glass of wine, and she’s shaking with laughter. ‘ _Stop encouraging him,_ ’ he mouths at her. She sticks her tongue out at him. 

Aaron’s just about to break into Kevin’s rant when Kate’s phone rings. She groans, holding up a hand to gesture for Kevin to shut up as she answers. 

“Yeah Ris? Shoot okay, yeah I’m at my place, we were just eating. Yeah, I’ll be there in fifteen.” She puts down her phone with an apologetic grimace. “Sorry boys, got a guy who tried to eat a drawer full of socks to tend to.” She’s up, coat on, and bag grabbed in about thirty seconds, slipping around the table and kissing Aaron lightly on the cheek on her way to the door. 

“It was lovely to meet you Kevin,” she says with a smile. “Please, don’t rush out on my account. There’s chocolate pie in the fridge. My husband’s a terrible host but don’t let him push you out the door without dessert. ” It’s Aaron’s turn to make a face at her this time, accompanied by a lazily rude hand gesture. She grins and blows him a kiss from halfway out the door. “Love you too honey. See you later, bye!” 

She’s gone in a flurry of perfume and waving fingers, and suddenly he and Kevin are alone in the apartment. Aaron groans. Why couldn’t they have done this on a night she wasn’t on call? 

“Sorry about that,” Aaron offers. Across the table, Kevin is frowning into his chicken. Aaron searches for a way to continue the conversation, but he doesn’t have anything particular to add on the subject of shaved bear bigfoots. “Uh. Do you want a real drink?”

That seems to pique Kevin’s interest. “What have you got?”

Not much, as it turns out. Aaron drank like any other medical student in college – which was to say he’d been a fan of whatever liquor was cheap and plentiful. Adulthood, however, has a way of making mixing drinks into a chore rather than an adventure, so he and Kate keep mostly wine or beer on hand. 

“I’m pretty sure we’re out of beer,” Aaron admits. “Let me see what we’ve got for liquor.” He finds the correct cabinet and sighs. Apparently they haven’t restocked in even longer than he thought. “Okay we’ve got brandy, peach schnapps, and tequila. And not a whole lot of options on mixers.” 

“Tequila is the healthiest liquor,” Kevin proclaims. And well, that decides that, doesn’t it?”

An hour – two hours? fuck – later, they’re sprawled out across the living room furniture, and Aaron doesn’t know why he didn’t think of just getting Kevin drunk before. He’s such a tightly wound bastard normally, but drunk Kevin seems to actually let his guard down. He’s actually not hard to get along with at all. 

“Hey I’ve been meaning to ask…the X-Files. How did it all…happen?” Aaron asks, gesturing with his drink. He’s not sure what Kevin ended up mixing the latest ones with. Diet Coke Lime, maybe? It tastes kind of awful but damn if it doesn’t get the job done. He’s been wondering this for a while, actually. 

“My mom,” Kevin says. 

“Your mom worked in the X-Files?” That’s a surprise. Kayleigh Day is a bit of a Bureau legend. She was one of the early leaders of applying behavioral sciences to cases, along with Tetsuji Moriyama. Sharp, brash, and brilliant; those are the words Aaron’s heard used to describe Kevin’s mother. He can’t quite imagine her being stuck working someplace like this. 

“She founded them,” Kevin says. Aaron sits up in surprise.

“What?!”

“It wasn’t anything official,” Kevin says. “It was more like a personal project. A collection of cases she thought didn’t add up, that just sort of all built up over the years. I’m not sure how much even Tetsuji knew about it. I didn’t discover it until years after she died.”

Aaron’s heard that story, too. Kayleigh Day, decorated FBI Agent, tragically killed in a home robbery gone wrong. 

“I’m sorry,” he offers, but Kevin doesn’t respond. The air in the apartment is suddenly heavy, and Aaron is desperate to lighten the mood. 

“Hey, so tell me about your entire two friends,” Aaron says, Kevin rolls his head to look at him. 

“Ugh, of course you bring that up. There’s nothing wrong with have a close circle of friends,” Kevin says, with the overly-intentional diction of the thoroughly sloshed. “Fine. Thea and Jean. Jean and I…” there’s a moment of hesitation. Kevin drags the back of his left hand across his face. “went to school together,” he says eventually, like a decision. 

“And Thea is your girlfriend?” Aaron prompts. Even well into drunkenness, he can sense that probing deeper into whatever this ‘Jean’ relationship is isn’t the best idea. Also because he wants clarification – the room is spinning just a little. 

“Something like that,” Kevin says. Aaron snorts from where he’s lying. 

“Dude. Are you dating her or not?”

“I mean…” Kevin hesitates, and Aaron lies back down heavily, letting the room settle before he gathers his words to speak. 

“Take it from me – that is something you want to clarify.” 

Kevin makes a noise that might be agreement or might mean he’s going to be sick. Aaron isn’t really sure. 

“So your friends, then,” Kevin says, “Let me guess. Two friends from med school, and the three that you’re related to are your wife, your brother, and your mom?”

“Uh.” Okay, Aaron is not ready for this. 

“Fuck,” Kevin mutters. “I did it again, didn’t I?” Accidently tumbled ass over teakettle into the thorn bushes of Aaron’s worst traumas? Yeah, somehow he’s made a habit of it. 

“Yeah,” Aaron admits, slumping back down and staring at the ceiling. “It’s…it’s okay man. It’s been years. But, um, you were right about the friends from med school. Few of guys still keep in touch. And it’s – my wife, my cousin, and one of my in-laws.” College-Aaron wouldn’t have believed it, but there it was.

“I’m not sure I should ask but…you have a brother, right? He works for the Bureau too, doesn’t he? Not him?” 

Kevin sounds like he’s afraid he’s overstepped. But funnily enough, the question hurts less than anything else. Aaron finds himself smiling, if a little wryly.

“Nah,” Aaron says casually, trying to think of a way to describe his current relationship with his twin. They text intermittently, talk on the phone for a few minutes now and then, and Katelyn occasionally needles him round for dinner. They’ve even started doing Christmas together with Nicky and Erik again, the last few years. Aaron still hadn’t found out he and Neil had gotten married until almost a year after the fact.

“I mean yeah, he works in Legal, trying to keep us from becoming the bad guys or whatever. Andrew’s…well. He’s my twin brother, and we’re both just giant fuck ups so… Like, I’d die for him, but I think he might actually kill me if I claimed we were friends.” They’re brothers. It’s enough. 

“So you’ve met my wife. Now tell me about this woman who may or may not be your girlfriend.” 

“Ugh,” Kevin says, emphatically enough that Aaron laughs out loud. “Thea…she’s incredible. Just so – self-possessed. Like, she can do fucking anything you know? She went to college on a fucking fencing scholarship, like how badass is that, then joined the air force, and now she works for a diplomatic task force fighting terrorism? Like, I honestly don’t know what she sees in me sometimes, shit.” Aaron has to stop himself from repeating ‘make sure this woman knows you want her to be your girlfriend,’ because the last person he heard sound that in love was probably Nicky. 

“I’m sure she knows she’s way out of your league, Kevin,” he says dryly, instead. Kevin laughs. 

“Yeah probably. Thank god she doesn’t seem like the marrying kind, I’d probably have to take her name. Do I look like a Muldani to you?” 

Deep through the haze of Tequila-Diet-Coke-Lime, the name tickles something in the back on Aaron’s head. Oh. _Oh no._

“Hey Kev, what task force did you say she worked for?”

“Uh…international antiterrorism something? Her work’s focused on Eastern Europe right now. They do a lot of work with the NSA.” Shit shit shit shit.

“Does, um-” oh god, he’s not about to ask this “-with the NSA, she doesn’t work with a Josten, by any chance?” 

“Oh Neil?” Kevin says casually. Fuck. Aaron groans. 

“You know Neil.” Of course. Of course his life would be like this. 

“You know Neil?” From behind his closed eyes, Aaron hears Kevin struggle into a sitting position. “Cool dude, no? We actually had a really interesting chat one time about modern vampire sightings.” 

“Oh god,” Aaron mutters vaguely, not opening his eyes. “Yeah, sure. Cool dude. Okay.” Okay. They’ve come this far, might as well go the whole hog. “You, uh, met his husband?” Obviously, Kevin hadn’t, there was no way he wouldn’t have put it together but-

“Nah, haven’t had the pleasure. Or pain, maybe, by the rumors. Andrew something, isn’t it? He’s pretty private, I guess? Works for the Bureau in…legal…” Aaron hears the moment in clicks in Kevin’s alcohol fogged brain. “Oh my god. No.” 

As much as Aaron is loathe to admit it- “Yes.” 

And then they’re laughing, laughing like they couldn’t stop if they wanted to. 

It feels good, lying here, drunker than he’s dared get in years, sprawled in the comfort of his own home with his work partner-maybe-friend, who apparently thinks his brother-in-law is a ‘cool dude’ because they talked about vampires. It’s good. His chest feels light, and the soft glow of the living room lamps is low and comfortable. When Aaron finally catches his breath, Kevin has also gone quiet. A moment later, he starts snoring, and Aaron has to bite on his fist to keep from laughing out loud again and waking him. 

Aaron stumbles into bed a while later, and a while after than is gently awakened by his wife, warm and bright and quietly giggling, which tells him that Kevin must still be snoring on the couch. Katelyn slips quietly under the covers and wraps herself around him, and suddenly he remembers-

“Oh no,” he groans quietly. Kate stills behind him. The clock is blinking past three in the morning. 

“…what is it?” Kate asks hesitantly. Aaron sighs, his brain still tequila-fuzzy. 

“I’m sorry. I forgot about the pie,” he whispers regretfully. There’s silence, and Aaron feels horribly, drunkenly ashamed until he registers the feeling of Kate shaking against his back, and realizes she’s barely holding back laughter. “Hey. Don’t laugh. ‘m drunk…. Fragile.” 

“Aaron. Baby. You are the least fragile fucker I know, you can take it,” she says, still laughing. “It’s okay. We can send him home with some pie. It’ll keep. Now go back to sleep.” He can hear the smile in her voice. She presses her lips to the crown of his head and everything in him relaxes again. Aaron falls asleep the closest thing he’s been to content in a long time. 

 

//

 

“You’ve got less than three months, Kevin,” Wymack says when Kevin picks up the phone, and Kevin nearly hangs up on him on the spot. Does Wymack – he still can’t really think of him as _my father_ except in the abstract – think he doesn’t realize that? 

“I’m not changing my mind,” Kevin says. They’ve been over this. He’s not pressing charges. 

“We can make it discreet if-“

“You can’t promise that,” Kevin cuts him off. “Wymack come on, you know better than that. There’s no way. There’s no way to do this without me testifying. Without you testifying,”

“I said I would do-“

“-No way to do this without it becoming a media circus.” Kevin bowls over him. How many times will he have to say it? Just thinking about it makes his chest hurt, makes it harder to breathe. Every month that goes by feels like the click of a collar tightening around his neck. The statue of limitations for felony assault is three years. Kevin works in law enforcement, he fucking knows that, but he can’t-

“He deserves to be locked up, Kevin,” Wymack’s voice is low and fierce. “He deserves it for what he did to you.” 

It isn’t funny, but something terribly close to laughter shakes out of Kevin’s chest, because Wymack doesn’t know that half of it. He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about, when it comes down to it. Doesn’t understand that this can’t go to trial because they would ask questions. They would ask about ‘warning signs,’ about the ‘nature of their relationship.’ They would talk about how long Kevin and Riko were partners, friends. How they were practically brothers. Hell, they’d probably drag Jean into the whole mess, and that’s the last think Kevin wants. But he can’t tell Wymack any of that, either. 

“I have to go,” he says instead. “I need to pack. Minyard and I are going to Georgia in the morning, those missing loggers.” He chews his lip for a second. “I’m gonna be out of cell service for a couple days, probably. Just so you know.” 

He feels more than hears the heavy sign on the other end of the line. “All right,” Wymack says. “I’m sorry I keep pushing, kid. I just don’t like that bastard getting away with it.” 

A bright, hot flash of anger flares up in Kevin at that – it’s not like he doesn’t, it’s just that the alternative is worse. He forces himself to breathe through it. 

“I know,” Kevin says. It’s the easiest thing to say. 

 

//

 

“Forgive me,” their interviewer says, staring at Aaron over the edge of her glasses, and Aaron knows the good will they’ve built up in the last hour has just all gone to hell, “but I am a touch concerned about some incidents in your history, Mr. Minyard,”. He doesn’t have to ask what she’s referring to. A few years ago, her tone alone would have had Aaron’s hands curling into fists, but he can’t afford that now. 

“You’re forgiven,” Aaron says, fighting to keep his tone mild, friendly. Katelyn squeezes his hand. “I understand what your worries would be at first glance, but the content and outcome of that trial are as much a matter of public record as the initial charges. I was acquitted of all charges, and I’ve been working every day since to prove I deserved that jury’s faith in me, that I am not a violent person.” He pauses, taking a few calming breaths. Katelyn is a rock beside him; he can feel the pride rolling off of her in waves, and it gives him the strength to finish saying what he needs to say. 

“My brother was raised in the foster system, and it let him down. I was raised by our mother, and the system let me down, too. My brother and I were two very unlucky kids, ma’am, and that _concerning incident_ was the worst day of our lives. I’m hoping you’ll understand that. I want to raise a kid in a good, safe home. A home where whoever that kid is, they never have to go through what my family went through.”

The interviewer looks thoughtful as he finishes. There are more questions, for him and Katelyn, but she doesn’t bring up the trial again. She taps her pen a few times against her clipboard as they get ready to leave. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Minyard, you have to understand you are an… unusual case,” she says. Aaron can feel Katelyn tense, getting ready to fire something back, but the interviewer holds up a hand. “That said…I believe you are sincere. I’ll talk to the board and let you know what we decide.” 

Aaron feels ready to pass out and sleep for a year by the time they leave. When they get home, he pulls Katelyn into bed with him, strokes his hands along the beautiful planes of her face. She kisses him slowly, gently, a thing of mutual comfort and reassurance, a thing of aching love. She believes in him, he reminds himself. They believe in each other. He curls himself around her and pretends he can keep this one good thing safe forever.

“They didn’t say no,” she reminds him, her voice a soothing murmur against his throat. “It’s a start.” It’s a start. 

 

//

 

“Do not tell me you’re siding with the eco-terrorists,” Aaron says, though he sounds amused as much as annoyed. “ _Kevin._ ” Kevin thinks about it. 

Kevin’s not into nature, really, but he’s always liked the mountains. There’s something steadying about the way civilization melts away, the way the trees look like they might have a hundred years ago, or a thousand. 

“I like the forest,” he admits. Once, when he was still in New York, Thea had hauled him to the Natural History Museum (‘you’re a history major, Kev, how the fuck have you never been?’ ‘I didn’t major in the history of plants and rocks, Thea.’ ‘It’s not just about plants and rocks. It’s about our relationship to them.’) He’d stood before the slice of Sequoia milled from California forests during the early days of westward expansion – the timeline points out marks on the rings older then the United States, older than the Roman Empire, the plaque says it took two men with axes thirteen days to cut it down – and nearly wept.

“The mountains in West Virginia are beautiful, but I was never allowed to explore them as a kid. Riko wasn’t interested in nature, so we didn’t go, but I thought they seemed nice. Like they’d be…safe.”

It’s an admission, almost. This is something he and Aaron do now, this casual sharing. Kevin’s not really sure when it started. It’s innocent stuff, mostly – anecdotes here and there, little things. 

It’s surprisingly easy, now that they’ve started. It’s nice, to have someone know things about you, to know things about someone else in turn. It’s not really something Kevin has experienced outside of romantic relationships. (Jean is maybe the one exception, but their friendship could hardly be called ‘normal,’ and Kevin can’t pretend he was never at least a little in love with him.) 

“Anyway, Earth First did file formal complaints with the forestry department first,” Kevin continues carefully. Their driver is a member of said forestry department, at least by association, and it won’t do them any favors to incur ill will on this trip. “I’m not saying their methods aren’t illegal, irresponsible, and demanding of repercussions, but I can understand their frustration. They claim the logging companies are cutting marked trees, old growth trees that have been part of these mountains for hundreds of years. Trees like that can’t be replaced with a couple of saplings. It hurts the history of the forest and it damages the ecosystem.” 

Aaron shoots him a mildly impressed look from where he’s hunched over on the other side of the back seat. He looks cold, dressed in a professional-but-casual sweater. They’re in Georgia, but it’s January in the mountains, so it’s only getting colder as they climb. “Huh,” Aaron says. “Well, I guess we’ll see when we get there.” 

‘When we get there’ is another two hours and hundreds of feet higher above sea level. They’re an hour into it when Kevin checks his phone and sighs in relief at the exact moment Aaron says “Shit.”

From the front seat of the Jeep, the ranger driving them laughs. 

“Just lose cell signal?” the ranger asks knowingly. “Yeah, that’s why most contact out here is by radio. Don’t worry, I’ve got a walkie if you need to relay anything important. 

Kevin is, in fact, avoiding phone calls at the moment. Aaron, however, is frowning at his lap turning the phone over and over in his hands. 

“Yeah. Just waiting for a call, that’s all.” 

“Oh,” Kevin tries to remember if Aaron has mentioned anything he might be waiting for a call about, but comes up blank. “Everything’s okay, though?” It feels like he should check. Aaron’s hands tighten around his phone.

“Yeah, I-“ The phones twirls in Aaron’s hands. “Katelyn and I had an interview with the foster care agency. We’re waiting to hear back to see if we got approved.” The phone stops twirling, and Aaron tucks it away. “That’s all.” 

“Oh.” Aaron hasn’t mentioned they were thinking of fostering, Kevin doesn’t think. But then, he supposes it’s kind of a private thing, at least in the beginning. “We’ll probably be back by tonight,” Kevin offers. 

“Yeah,” Aaron agrees. By unspoken agreement, they turn back to the case files for the rest of the ride. 

It’s mid morning but the previous evening’s dew is still clinging to the undergrowth by the time they stop the car, a half mile from the logging camp that’s been radio silent for the past two weeks, its staff of nearly twenty men and women nowhere to be seen. When they climb out of the truck, Aaron is actually shivering. 

“Cold, son?” the ranger asks with a laughing grin. “Where’re you from anyway?”

“California,” Aaron says, clearly begrudgingly, huddling further into his too-thin sweater. Kevin can’t help grinning a little himself. Sure, he spent a lot of his childhood in the south, but he lived in New York long enough that he’s more than used to the cold. “By way of South Carolina though, and we’re in Georgia, not the great white north.” 

“Mountains, though,” Kevin points out, and Aaron huffs a little. 

“I think I’ve got an extra jacket in the truck somewhere,” the ranger offers. “It, ah, might be my wife’s, but it should fit you.” 

For once, Aaron doesn’t even complain about the crack about his size. He furrows his shoulders a little further together and says “Anything you’ve got would be great, thanks.” 

Kevin is rifling through his own bag when the ranger – his name is Bill, Kevin recalls – finds the jacket, but hears the slightly awkward set to the his voice when he says “My wife’s…a fan of color. She says it’s retro? It’s warm, anyway.” 

“Thanks,” Aaron mutters, and when Kevin turns around, there’s no stopping the shit eating grin he can feel spreading across his face. 

The jacket is awful. Bright pink, purple, and mint green, it looks like it was pulled directly from a 1995 Sears catalogue, women’s leisure section. It’s all nylon, the kind that rustles when you move, with a chunky purple zipper up the front, and it falls almost to Aaron’s knees. It’s amazing. 

“Please let me take a picture to show your wife,” Kevin can’t resist saying. The look on Aaron’s face as he crosses his arms – which does nothing to dispel the picture of a little kid dressed in his mother’s jogging jacket – says he’s having sincere regrets about giving Kevin his wife’s number. 

Katelyn is a little perplexing to Kevin, but he’s been warming to her in the months they’ve known each other. She reminds him a bit of some of the girls he went to college with, sharp and soft in equal measure. Their fledgling friendship mostly consists of Kevin sending her embarrassing stories and pictures of Aaron, and her sending him the most bizarre conspiracy theories she comes across, and sometimes pictures of their weirdest pets that come into her office, captioned #cryptid? This will be an excellent addition. There’s no cell service up here, but the photo will keep until they get back. 

“I can’t believe I let you two exchange numbers. I swear to god, Kevin, if that picture makes its way back to the rest of my family-“

“You’ll have only Katelyn to blame. I wouldn’t dream of it,” Kevin assures him as he tucks the phone away, which is totally a lie, but at least for now he’ll keep it under ‘serious blackmail only.’ “Come on, Agent Minyard, we’ve got a camp of missing loggers to sort out.” 

It’s still a mile trek to the actual campsite from where the vehicle-friendly path ends. There is another road out on the other side of the camp for log trucks, but it’s much more meandering due to the slope of the mountain, and Bill insists it’s faster just to walk. The ground is cold and soft beneath their shoes, remnants of a hard rain the night before. There’s a chance they’ll have to stay the night. Kevin takes a deep breath of clean mountain air, and thinks there are worse places to be.

“…can’t believe I got my fucking medical degree for this,” he hears muttered from behind him, and when he looks back and sees Aaron and the jacket again he can’t help but laugh. But Aaron doesn’t look cold anymore, at least. Kevin turns back to focus on the path. They’ve got a long day ahead of them. 

 

//

 

When they reach the camp around noon, the first thing Aaron takes note of is the quiet. It’s not any different than the quiet of their hike up the mountain, but that in itself is the strange part. There should be over twenty men and women stationed at this camp. But there are no sounds of them. No chatter from the cabin where the kitchen and bunks are. No booted feet stomping through the underbrush nearby. Not even the whining and huffing of the logging equipment in the distance. Just – nothing. 

Maybe everyone’s just…gone home. It’s not likely, sure – they’re nearly a mile above sea level, surrounded by thick forest, and they’ve been on the only road that goes directly down the mountain for the last few hours – but it’s possible. And then at least then no one else would have to see him in this stupid (if warm) jacket. But no, unless the whole place trouped down days ago and fell en masse into a ravine, something distinctly weird is going on. 

“Mid-day siesta?” Ranger-Bill suggests weakly, clearly as unnerved by the silence as Aaron is. 

“Unlikely,” Kevin says, sounding equally apprehensive. “Come on, let’s take a look around. Are there any other trails out of here besides the truck road and the one we just came up?” Bill wags his hand vaguely in a ‘so-so’ gesture.

“There’s one that tracks to the next camp. ‘Bout ten miles east of here or so. But no other trails back down, no,” Bill says, gesturing toward one of the paths that cuts eastward into the woods. And just has he says it, there is suddenly the sound of running feet on packed dirt, and a man comes sprinting around a bend a few meters up it, stumbling to a gasping halt in front of them. 

“Oh thank fuckin’ Jesus oh my god you don’t know how happy I was to hear voices I thought everyone up here was-“ the man looks up from where he’s been rambling at the ground, leaning on his own knees and wheezing as he talks, and pales a little. “Uh,” he says. 

Aaron folds his arms defensively, but the man’s expression is explained when Ranger-Bill says “And just what the hell are you doing up here, Cal?” 

Aaron wouldn’t know him by face, but the name ticks something in his brain, something from the case file. Kevin gets there before him. “Robert Calhoun?” Ah, that’s it. Robert Calhoun – Cal, to friends and enemies both apparently – leader of a local band of eco terrorists unofficially titled Earth First. Nothing had ever been pinned on them directly, they were too good at hiding, but they’d been suspected or implicated in dozens of counts of vandalism to the nearby logging camps. Charges included seeding the paths with caltrops to blow tires, ruining motors with sugar, and dozens of other acts ranging from low level misdemeanors to outright felonies. 

Robert Calhoun, seemingly the only living soul in this suspiciously silent logging camp. 

“Look Bill, I can explain,” Cal breathes. Of course he’s on first name basis with the local rangers.

“Uh-huh,” Bill says skeptically. “I sure hope you can explain why you’re the only living person in a logging camp that’s been radio silent for two weeks.” 

Cal’s face goes paler still. “Two weeks?” he whispers, running a hand through overlong hair. “Fuck, I hoped…” he trails off, casting a wary glance at the surrounding forest. “It started here, didn’t it? I should have known, Sammy and Burke dropped out of contact days before it hit the east camp but I’d hoped that…Damnit. Damnit, if I’d known that I might have found a way down the fuckin’ mountain instead of-”

“Cal,” Aaron interrupts loudly. Cal shuts his mouth, expression hovering somewhere between indignation and nervous breakdown. It reminds him a little of Kevin, actually. “You’re going to have to back up. What started here?” 

Cal blinks at them for a few long seconds, disbelievingly. Then he lets out a breath. “They kept calling it the swarm. That’s all I know, dude.” 

“Doctor,” Aaron corrects, half on autopilot. He didn’t go through that much goddamn school to be called _dude_ by an overgrown tree hugger. “Wait, did you say swarm?” 

“I mean, that’s why you’re here, aren’t you?” Cal asks. 

“We’re here because a group of twenty loggers hasn’t been in contact with the ground in almost two weeks, and there were rumors of your group wreaking potentially deadly havoc in the area.” Kevin says in his I’m-an-FBI-Agent-and-you’re-stupid voice. Cal bristles, hands balling into fists at his sides. 

“We don’t hurt people, _agent._ Stall an engine, bust a tire? Sure. It’s the least these guys deserve for cutting down marked trees!” 

Aaron takes a moment to look between the members of their party. Bill is staring Cal down with outright distaste, and Kevin is eyeing him with suspicion. Cal, on the other hand, has his eyes on the woods. He looks scared, Aaron realizes. Huh. Maybe he knows something. 

“Calhoun,” Aaron says, waiting for Cal’s attention to shift back to him before continuing. “We’re doing a sweep of the woods. If the loggers were getting up to anything shady, it could have something to do with all this. Show us where you think they were cutting marked trees.” 

Cal leads the way to the site in the woods where they find the logging equipment. It’s abandoned, but packed away neatly. It looks totally, eerily normal, like the workers had simply buttoned up camp at the end of a day, and then never returned. 

“Odd,” Bill says. He’s squinting at the truck loaded with logs. All the equipment is clean and free of mud, which means it’s been sitting here for at least four days, since before the last heavy rainfall, but other than that Aaron isn’t sure what he means. 

“What’s odd?” Aaron asks. Bill gestures at the truck. 

“You wouldn’t leave logs on the truck like that,” he says. “Bed’s full, there’s even stacks to the side they couldn’t fit, see? Load like that, end of day you drive it back to camp and prep it to go down the mountain.”

“They wouldn’t have just waited until morning?” Kevin asks, walking over to join in. Bill shakes his head. 

“Usually you’ve got a night driver so they can get it to the mills by morning. They should have left as soon as the truck was full, then started filling the next one.”

They haven’t seen a second hauling truck at all, actually. Not here or back by the camp. Aaron wanders around to the other side of the truck to check the tires – maybe Cal’s buddies had sabotaged this one too, that could be a reason it didn’t get driven back – when a fallen tree a few meters further from the clearing catches his eye.

“Hey Kev!” Aaron calls behind himself, wandering closer. Kevin catches up just as he reaches the stump of an enormous felled tree, as do Cal and Bill. 

“I told you!” Cal explains triumphantly. “Marked fuckin’ tree.” 

There is, in fact, a wide stripe of blue spray paint on the side of the felled trunk. Aaron knows what the logging company would say if confronted: that clearly the eco-terrorists had little enough regard for the law, what was stopping them from picking up a can of paint and marking a felled tree just to try and get the company in trouble? But it was clear just from the sheer size of the thing that it was old forest growth, hundreds of years old at least. 

That wasn’t not what had caught Aaron’s eye. 

What had caught his eye is the bright green, glittering ooze dribbling from one of the deepest rings. It takes them all a moment to realize it isn’t just ooze. It’s something that looks weirdly like…insect eggs and larva. 

“What the hell is that?” Bill asks. 

“Something that should be impossible,” Kevin says cryptically. When Aaron raises a pointed brow at him, he huffs slightly and elaborates. 

“The ring these are in is from centuries ago,. at least,” Kevin explains quietly, fingers brushing over a cluster of tight, narrow rings that represent the slow growth of the years of cold, just outside of where the green ooze is. “Trees grow from the outside, they don’t send water and oxygen into the heartwood. There’s no rot and no signs of burrowing, but there’s no way something could be living this deep in a tree. Unless…”

Kevin has a look on his face that Aaron knows to well, even after barely two months working together. It’s a look that says he’s about to say something some people would classify as ‘crazy,’ and nearly everyone would call ‘a theory unbefitting an agent of the federal government.’ 

In other words, he’s about to make this case an X-File.

“…Unless what, Kevin?” 

“Maybe whatever these things are, wherever they’re from, they don’t need oxygen and water to survive.”

A cloud drifts in front of the sun, throwing the whole forest into even deeper shadow, and it’s like the world goes quiet.

“Um,” Kevin murmurs, and Aaron realizes that, no, the world actually went quiet. The white noise of birdsong, insect buzzing, and scampering animals has disappeared with the light. The trees seem taller, all of the sudden. Aaron is from California, but he spent his while childhood in the hot concrete deserts of Oakland. He’s heard tales of the old redwood groves, the way they make you feel like some old god has turned his eye on you, looking down from the tops of trees older than you can really wrap your head around a living thing being. He wonders if this is what that feels like. It’s like the forest is holding it’s breath, Aaron thinks. Then, a little wildly, _like it’s trying not to be heard._

The cloud passes. The sun comes back. The noise of the forest returns. Ranger Bill laughs uncomfortably, checking his radio for signal as if for comfort. Cal looks like he’s seen a ghost, but he just shakes his head at Aaron’s questioning look, throwing nervous glances back to the felled tree. When Kevin suggests they head back to the cabins, he gets no argument. 

They don’t get far when Cal’s voice cuts through the silence.

“What the fuck is that thing?”

He’s staring up toward the treetops. At first Aaron sees nothing but leaves, then his eyes catch on it – a mass of cloudy white, suspended in the branches of a nearby oak. It look like…

“It looks like a cocoon,” Kevin says. If a cocoon was seven feet long and as big around as a small tree trunk itself. “Or one of those big caterpillar nests? The ones that turn into moths, what are they called?” 

“Tent caterpillars,” Aaron supplies. He doesn’t even turn to see Kevin’s predictably surprised glance before continuing “I do know things sometimes, Kevin.” A pause. “Including that that is not a tent caterpillar nest. Come on, let’s cut it open.” 

With that, Aaron begins to make his way up the tree. He hears Kevin sputter a little behind him, but pays him no mind. He’s not about to ask Ranger-Bill to take on the risk of getting closer to this thing, but prep boy Agent Kevin Day doesn’t strike him as having much tree climbing experience. Aaron is pretty limited in that experience himself, but he wasn’t an athlete in college for nothing, and a lifetime of living at a vertical disadvantage to the world means scrambling up things is practically second nature. 

“You sure that’s the best idea, son?” Bill calls up. Aaron looks down at them from where he’s reached the cocoon, a good ten feet in the air. The science student in him is wringing its hands about protocol and safety, but a bigger part of him is saying cut to the chase. Aaron pulls the knife out of his back pocket and flicks it open, grinning a little at the way Kevin’s eyes widen. 

“Whatever it is, it can’t be worse than a dead body,” he says mildly. He’s still grinning a little as he slices into the cottony sling, right up until the moment he freezes, staring down into the slice he’s made in the pod. The world wavers, and he leans quickly back against the tree, eyes closed, grip white-knuckled on the nearest branch to keep himself steady. 

“Aaron?” Kevin’s voice sounds worried, but far away. 

“Fuck,” Aaron says faintly. The side of the sling near where he was cutting creaks, sways, and gives way, swinging down and depositing the contents of the cocoon onto the forest floor. 

It’s a dead body.

And it’s only now, from his perch high in the tree, and now that he knows what to look for, that Aaron sees it. Dread rises like a tide in his chest. There are more cocoons, strung through the trees as far as he can see. At least a dozen that Aaron can make out from here. Probably more. Maybe, altogether, enough to account for an entire camp of missing loggers. 

What the hell is going on?

“It’s the swarm,” Cal says, ragged, haunted, and pale as the rising moon.

 

//

 

They manage to rig a tarp sled for the cocoon and body so they can drag it back to the main camp – Aaron wants to do a further examination to see if it can tell them anything about whatever caused this. On the walk back, Kevin gets the rest of the story out of Cal. There is a time for Aaron’s oddly scalpel-like interrogative techniques, and then there is a time for the good old-fashioned brute force of the FBI handbook. That time is now, and this Kevin excels at. By the time they make it back to the main cabin, the pieces are beginning to slot together. The missing loggers, the green eggs and ooze, the cocoons, the silence of the shadows of the forest. It all fits. 

“There was a meteor strike not far from here,” Kevin realizes. “About a thousand years ago. This tree would already have been hundreds of years old. The timeline fits.” 

He can feel the look Aaron is giving him without looking.

“An alien bug,” Aaron says flatly. “That’s what you’re suggesting here? An alien bug crawled off a meteorite a thousand years ago, and has spent the last millennium hibernating inside it until some asshole chopped it down, and now the bugs are swarming and cocooning people alive?” 

Kevin folds him arms defensively. “I know you’re trying to insult me, but yes.” 

It’s Bill who breaks the silence that follows. 

“Look, if you want to cut open this body, you’re not gonna want to do it outside where you’ll attract predators. You two get the poor fellow into the cabin. Cal here and I’ll get the generator going for light, and do a perimeter check. How’s that sound?” 

Kevin can feel himself being coddled, but it’s a reasonable plan. They all agree to it, and that no matter what they find, they’ll use Bill’s radio to call for backup as soon as they get the generators – and therefore a well-lit haven – up and running. While Bill and Cal go off to deal with the power, Kevin and Aaron take the body inside. 

The main cabin is just as empty as the rest of the camp, and creepier by far. There are flashlights, candles, and kerosene lamps on every surface – it looks like they’ve been gathered from everywhere they could be found. The table by the kitchenette has plates on which rest sandwiches that have started to mold even in the cool spring temperatures. The few bunks are mostly unmade, still littered with personal belongings. Most strikingly, all of the walls have been covered with an assortment of heavy plastic tarps, clearly scrounged from all over the camp. 

The air smells of dirt, gas, and polyethylene. Kevin feels himself start to sweat, and shoves his hands deep into his pockets. He breathes through his mouth, focusing on the weak light still filtering through the plastic-covered windows, the sight of the trees beyond, until his pulse feels almost normal.

“So…” Kevin says uncomfortably. “kind of a…construction site vibe?”

“More like murder site,” Aaron says, eyeing the duct tape lining the seams of the tarps. Kevin huffs a laugh he doesn’t feel, and Aaron looks at him strangely. The smell of Kerosene gets a little stronger, the sound of the generator splits the mountain air, and the lights in the cabin flicker to life, and it’s fine. 

It’s fine until darkness begins to truly fall, and Bill and Cal aren’t back. It’s fine until they hear the screams in the distance, and Kevin is running for the exit before he can think, a firm hand around his arm stopping him a second from the door. 

“Kevin.” 

Kevin whips around to Aaron’s anguished face. 

“We can’t just leave them out there!” 

“We have to,” Aaron says, jaw tight. “Kevin it’s dark, don’t you get it? The light is what keeps them from swarming. That’s why it got so quiet in the forest. That’s why there’s so little gas anywhere. They light is the only thing keeping us safe right now, that and that closed door. Open it, step out into the dark, and we’re both as good as dead.” 

Kevin takes a deep breath, nearly chokes on plastic-scented air, and sits on the edge of a bunk. 

“We have to do something,” he says weakly. 

“We’re going to,” Aaron tells him. “We’re going to survive this night, get down the mountain tomorrow, and then we’re going to tell anyone who will listen about this bug. They’ll probably have to burn half the forest down to kill it, but if we don’t it’s not going to stay at the top of this mountain. It will spread, and it will be deadly. But we’re going to stop it.” 

He sounds so certain. The last of the screams are gone. As are Bill and Cal, undoubtedly. Kevin looks up and Aaron offers him an uncertain, strained smile. Aaron pulls out the knife he used on the cocoon. “But first, I’m gonna cut into this dead body. Official procedure and all, or as close to it as we can get. Sorry if it smells.” 

Kevin moves himself to a bunk as far from the table as he can get, eyeing the whole set up warily. “Wouldn’t have pictured you as a blade guy,” he says. “Maybe a pocket knife or something. Not…that thing.” That thing is black and shiny, a switchblade with an edge that gleams wickedly even in the low light. 

Aaron’s face does something complicated, but then he just shrugs and says “Yeah. It was a gift.” 

Kevin has the briefest of moment to wonder from whom, but then Aaron is cutting into the body. The smell of blood and rot spills out like an oil slick. It layers itself over the dirt and kerosene and plastic, a concoction as poisonous as chlorine gas. Kevin feels himself go stiff. Feels his breathing start to go shallow. He throws himself back down onto the bunk, rolling over and burying himself in the scent of soap and stranger, but the plastic sheeting continues to rustle. The overhead bulbs continue to flicker weakly. 

“Not a single proper fucking tool-“ he hears from across the room. And then, the unmistakable snap of bone, cracking through him like an electric shock. 

“ _Stop._ ” He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. He squeezes his eyes shut, counts up and down in English, French, clumsy Spanish, Japanese. The sounds from across the room stop.

“Kevin?” Kevin can’t answer. He hears the wrinkle of plastic, a running tap, and footsteps approaching. 

“Kevin what’s going on? Are you hurt?” Aaron’s voice sounds strange, far-away and formal. Doctor voice, Kevin thinks vaguely. He just manages to shake his head no. “I don’t know what…Kevin. Can I touch you?” 

The question surprises Kevin just enough to knock it’s way past his racing thoughts. “Okay,” he whispers. A hand lands on his back and Kevin flinches violently, but then the hand is rubbing in small circles, warm and firm but not grabbing. When Aaron speaks again, his voice in concerned but even. 

“Kev breathe, please. I know you probably know this, but you’re having a panic attack. You’re okay, you just need to breathe. What helps? Does counting help you?” 

It’s too many words, but Kevin manages a nod into the pillow, so Aaron counts. In five, hold five, out five. Over and over and over. Kevin gasps, and then he sobs, and then he just lies there and trembles. He’s breathing, just barely, but he can’t seem to stop the shaking. 

“Can you tell me what it is?” Aaron asks. Kevin debates just shaking his head no – he doubts Aaron would push it. For some reason, he decides on the truth. 

“The smell,” he says, still breathing a little shallowly. “Not just the body,” he adds when Aaron starts to apologize. “Dirt, plastic, oil, blood. It’s the…combination. And the sound of the plastic. It’s…it reminds me,” he forces out, lifting his ruined left hand weakly off the bed and hoping Aaron can put it together on his own. 

“Reminds you…of the accident?” Aaron asks. A strangled bark of a laugh escapes Kevin’s chest, unbidden. Screw it, he’s come this far. 

“Wasn’t a fucking accident,” he spits. The words are half-buried in the pillow but he knows Aaron can hear him. “He attacked me. Smashed my hand with his gun.”

Aaron’s hand stills on his back, resting lightly. “Who?” 

“Who do you think?” 

“Fuck, Kev,” Aaron says with quiet feeling. “And he’s not-“ Kevin can hear the moment Aaron stops himself, takes a small breath. His hand starts moving again, just a little. “Okay. We can’t go outside or open the windows until morning. You’ve gotta hang in there until the sun comes up okay? I’m gonna…I’m gonna go wrap the body up a little better okay?...Sorry.” 

Aaron moves away, and there are more sounds of heavy tarps moving. By the time Kevin sits up, Aaron has wrapped the body in several more layers of plastic around the cocoon, duct taping down over the seams, and has started lighting some of the emergency candles scattered around the cabin. 

“They’re just beeswax, but I think that’s supposed to help clear the air? Like reduce odors and stuff. Anyway the extra light couldn’t hurt,” Aaron says at Kevin’s questioning look. He settles himself on the other end of the bunk, still wearing that stupid jacket, dimmed flashlight held loosely against his chest. He tosses Kevin a protein bar scrounged from a cupboard. “Eat, you’re probably exhausted,” he says. 

He’s not wrong. With the clean smell of the burning beeswax beginning to overpower the scent of blood, the adrenaline is beginning to drain from Kevin’s body, leaving him weak and shivery. He eats the protein bar, then leans back against one plastic-covered wall. Sleep doesn’t feel within reach, despite his exhaustion. He feels hollow, a little bit delirious. How did they end up here?

 

//

 

“So, Minyard. Was this what you dreamed of when you were slaving your way through medical school?” 

Aaron snorts. “Obviously. What surgery student doesn’t dream of being trapped with a dead body, hiding from swarms of alien insects in an abandoned mountain cabin?” It’s good to hear Kevin laugh a little at that, even though it’s far from funny. “But actually, I mean, I was going into trauma surgery, or that was the plan. I did well in the program, but there was a lot about the job that wasn’t going to be right for me.” He sighs. “What is this, a sleepover? Are we gonna stay up all night, talk about our tragic backstories?” Kevin peers over at him, but Aaron doesn’t meet his gaze. 

“I didn’t assume it was tragic,” Kevin says. Aaron shrugs. 

“It’s fine. I probably owe you like, one tragic thing. Considering.”

“I don’t need your supervillain origin story, Minyard,” Kevin says, and now Aaron does laugh. 

“Nice. Thanks for assuming I’d become a villain.”

“Hey, you’d be a cool supervillain. One of those doctors that gets tragically caught in his own experiment, or has to do some kind of crazy surgery to save his own life and becomes half-lizard or something.”

“So I’m a Spiderman villain. Fantastic.”

“Better than a Batman one.” 

Yeah, Aaron thinks. That would have been his brother. “I suppose you think you’d be Batman? Rich, over-educated orphan, brooding into the night about the evils of the world?”

“If I become Batman, I promise I’ll make you my Robin.” A pause, and Aaron can hear Kevin sniggering. “You’re the right size.” 

“Original, once again, Kevin,” Aaron says, but he’s smiling. 

What a fucked up picture they must make right now, huddled in the bunks of loggers who are strung up dead in the trees outside somewhere, hiding from a swarm of possibly extraterrestrial insects, a literal dead body wrapped in plastic across the room, beeswax candles and bare bulbs flickering all around them. 

It’s terrifying. It makes Aaron want to crawl out of his skin. Weirdly, it makes him want to keep talking. 

“Fuckin’ adoption agencies in Gotham man, how’d he even get all those kids?” Aaron lets his head drop heavily back against the plastic-covered wooden wall with a dull thud. He stares at the underside of the top bunk. “I just want to hear back. We’ve done the paperwork, and the evals, and the interviews, and we should have no problem, but-“ 

“But what?”

“I’m sure you’ve read my file by now, Kevin.” Aaron takes a deep breath. “They aren’t going to want to give a kid to someone who’s killed a man.” Kevin makes a noncommittal noise but doesn’t try to disagree, thankfully. “Sorry, I don’t know why I brought that up. Just stressed.” 

After a moment, Kevin says “Foster care, though. Can I ask why?... Is it the sex thing?” 

Aaron winces, but they’re both more than a little frayed – he can forgive the baldness of the question for now. It’s just there’s too much there to really explain, even if Aaron thought Kevin actually wanted to hear it. 

“It’s not the sex thing,” he says. Or at least, Aaron’s sexuality is only a small part of it. He’s had sex with Kate before, back when he thought he had something to prove. It had been…fine. He’s glad he figured himself out, but he could do it again, just for this, and even if he didn’t – there are options for having a biological kid. He has a medical degree, he knows that. But.

Kevin makes another small noise, and Aaron realizes he’s gone silent. “I…Kate was worried about keeping up at the hospital while pregnant,” he says. “Plus like, I don’t really have a family legacy I want to pass on, you know?”

It’s too easy to just keep filling the silence once he starts. “My mom was… I think I was the lucky one out of me and my brother, as fucked up as that is. But when I was a kid I never could have imagined that was the case. She was an addict and… her brother’s this dickhole homophobic preacher and it. Just feels like it should end, you know?”

It feels like a curse, somehow, his DNA. It’s a feeling that years of therapy hasn’t entirely dispelled. They’d talked about a sperm donor, he tells Kevin, but Katelyn had refused. Both or neither, she’d said firmly. That, added to her concerns about working while pregnant, made fostering the clear choice. 

And though he doesn’t admit it out loud – it would feel like a breach of privacy – there’s Andrew. His brother’s story: abandoned by his own blood twice over; tossed from home to home like a Christmas puppy when it became too much trouble; neglected and abused. Aaron thinks about that story, and something burns in him, bright and fierce. I could be better he thinks. He and Kate could give someone a chance. A family. 

“It’s the right choice for us,” Aaron tells Kevin, voice quiet. He can’t remember the last time he opened up like this to someone who wasn’t Kate or a licensed professional. He twists a little on the bunk, shoulder rustling against the plastic. “What about you, Batman? You want a family someday?” 

“I’m not an orphan,” Kevin says, unexpectedly. Aaron turns to look at him more fully. 

“Oh?”

“I have a father. I didn’t know for a long time, and I didn’t tell him until it was almost too late but…I have a father.” 

There’s something more to it, Aaron can sense it. “You don’t have to tell me,” he offers. But he thinks Kevin kind of wants to. 

“It’s Wymack.” 

Oh. _Oh._ “That…explains some things.” They both laugh weakly. 

“Yeah. I found out in college, didn’t tell him until after everything. I just wish I’d known sooner.” 

Kevin’s decided it’s his turn to fill the silence, it seems. “My mom died when I was ten. Tetsuji – Riko’s uncle – was the closest thing to a parent I knew growing up, and he could be…unkind. Still, I think his presence, his praise and mentorship, kept Riko in check. He died when we were nineteen, killed in the line of duty.” 

Kevin taps a hand against his cheek, against the small scar Aaron had noticed the day they met. “I got this the night after the funeral.”

Aaron is no fool. He’s intimate with the language of victimhood. Riko gave Kevin that scar, with a knife or a bottle or something else equally horrible to imagine. And then they had worked together for a _decade._ “That’s awful.” 

“It was…a difficult time.”

“Kevin-“

“I know,” Kevin says quietly, a shaky, self-deprecating twist pulling at the corner of his mouth. “I know.” 

Kevin tells him, haltingly, about the awful warehouse raid, the night Riko had snapped. About refusing to press charges and face the media circus that would inevitably follow. 

“It’s been two years, three months,” Kevin says, voice strained, “If I don’t report it for three years, the statute of limitations expires. Wymack-” Wymack, who is _Kevin’s father, shit._ “-won’t fucking let up. He means well, but I don’t want this. I just want to leave it behind me.” 

Aaron thinks of his brother again, about all the secrets Andrew had kept about the monsters in his past, about the horror show that had been dragging them into the light. “I don’t like it either,” he says, “but I understand.” 

They tell each other mostly stupid things, after that. How Kevin once broke his foot trying to ride his friend Jean’s motorcycle (‘I learned to drive on an automatic! There were so many things to keep track of!’) The years Aaron hadn’t been able to eat pork after too many pig dissections in school. The glow in the dark stars Kevin had wanted for his ceiling as a kid. The time Aaron and some of his grad school friends had methodically mixed every separate liquor in their cabinets with each other and with every kind of juice and soda they had, making a chart of how good the combinations were, ‘for science.’ (‘There’s a reason traditional mixes exist. Some of them were so bad, Kevin.’ ‘Worse then Tequila-Diet-Coke-Lime?’ ‘Worse then Tequila-Diet-Coke-Lime.’) 

They talk all night, trying to forget about the swarm outside and the body across the room. They talk until the candles burn down and the whole cabin smells of wax, smoke, and honey, instead of plastic and blood. By the time the sun is peeking back through the trees, Aaron is exhausted from more than just the sleepless night. His whole brain feels drained out. Kevin, in contrast, is restless and fidgety. As soon as they are sure the sun will hold for the hike back to the car, they make their escape. 

They leave the cocoons of bodies behind them. They don’t try to take samples. Maybe there will be time for recovery later, maybe the CDC or someone else will come back to study the insects, armed with proper gear – for now, Aaron and Kevin focus on getting out before the sun goes down. They stumble-run through the mile of hiking trail, make the call to Wymack from the radio of the Jeep, and drive. 

Aaron pulls them over as soon as they have cell service again. He sends Wymack pictures of the tree and the body from his phone. Kevin, probably in an attempt to lighten the mood, sends the stupid picture he took of Aaron to Katelyn. She texts him back a string of laughing emojis in minutes. It’s a little like whiplash, after everything, but it also makes Aaron feel like he can breathe again. They keep driving.

It turns out they didn’t have to worry about anyone wanting samples. Wymack forwards their messages along; by the time they get back to Washington, the mountain is already burning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was the entire impetus of this fic me wanting Aaron Minyard in that jacket? Maybe.


	3. Chapter 3

“So,” Thea says, one finger trailing around the edge of her seltzer glass, “how are the X-Files?” 

It’s early April, and they are having dinner together, her and Kevin. It’s something they’ve been doing more often lately. There is a fine line, Kevin knows, between going on dates with someone and dating them. It’s not a line he’s crossed with anyone else before. It had never seemed worth the risk. 

“Huh?” Kevin sputters slightly over the rim of his water, blinking at her in the warm light of her apartment. He’d been allowing himself to get distracted by the wild flow of her dark hair, usually tucked up. “Oh. The X-files are…they’re fine,” he manages at last.

“Kevin,” she says flatly. “What the shit?” 

Kevin barely keeps in a wince. She’s got a point. 

The thing is, he’s never crossed over this line before, but he’s been trying with Thea, he really has. Fearfully, haphazardly – badly, sometimes – but he’s been trying. What’s more, it’s been working. The fact that they are having dinner in her apartment and it feels less like a date and more like something they just do is testament to that. 

Despite all that, he still comes up empty. 

Eventually, Thea takes pity on him. “How are things going with your partner?”

That Kevin can do. Things with Aaron are good, actually. They have a rhythm, now. Aaron conducts witness interviews, while Kevin handles suspects. Kevin deals with the local police, and Aaron deals with the medical examiner. Kevin presents his theories, and while Aaron always scoffs and discredits the more fantastical elements, he never disputes the underlying facts. They’ve learned to trust each other’s instincts for when something is afoot. 

Despite Kevin’s earliest reservations, he recognizes how vital Aaron has become to their work. It’s the way he observes, Kevin thinks, and the way he asks questions. He doesn’t make assumptions, but he never tries to argue his way out of obvious facts of reality. He simply takes the information that is there and works with it. It’s a skill that makes him remarkably well-suited to working in the X-Files.

Plus, if their first case been a professional turning point for their partnership, the case up in the Georgia mountains had been a personal one. Now, after over five months of working together, Kevin would actually call them friends.

“When you went to the Minyard’s place for dinner,” Thea says, when they’ve started in on dessert, “did you talk about your theories? Your unsolved cases?” She’s not fidgeting, but it’s maybe the closest Kevin has ever seen her. 

Kevin shrugs. “Sure. Katelyn’s a vet. Sometimes she sends me pictures of really ugly animals they get in, asking if they might be baby bigfoot. It’s funny.” 

“Okay,” Thea says. Her face is serious, like she’s working through a problem. And something else, too. “So why won’t you tell me about your work?” 

Oh. Kevin places the look on her face, though he’s rarely seen it. She looks vulnerable. _Trying,_ he reminds himself, and takes a breath. 

“Katelyn is a friend, now,” he says, only really realizing it as he says it, “but she wasn’t when I started talking to her about this and-“ That’s not quite right. Kevin cuts himself off, frustrated. Across the table, Thea is all serious patience, the condensation on her glass pooling on the top edges of her fingers. Kevin focuses on that, rather than on her eyes. Starts over. 

“It’s not about who she is to me, it’s about who I am to her,” he says at last. Thea frowns slightly, but she’s listening. “I’m just some guy who works with her husband,” Kevin explains. “If she thinks I’m a nutcase, it’s okay. It’s a charming quirk, you know? The friend of a friend who believes in aliens. It’s funny, interesting, even. But if it’s someone you’re close to-“ 

When it’s someone you want in your life all the time… Well, you don’t want to burden the people who matter – people who might be affected by your reputations – with the parts of yourself the world laughs at. 

Riko taught him that. 

It’s later, and they are curled up on the couch together, the lights dim, the TV long since quiet, when Thea asks “Can I tell you a story?” 

She’s warm and heavy against Kevin’s chest, loose-limbed in a way that soothes, that aches. He tucks his face into her hair, breathes in the smell of coconut and the warm notes of her perfume. 

“Of course,” he murmurs. There’s a moment of easy silence as she collects her thoughts, then begins. 

“When my grandmother – my father’s mother – was a little girl in Somalia, she used to play all day on the shore of the ocean,” Thea begins, nearly whispering into the dark quiet of the room. “They were her favorite memories to talk about – the beautiful blue ocean that stretched as far as the eye could see. Near her town was an old stone fort, abandoned but still standing. Some people in the town said it was haunted, so no one else ever went there. She liked the solitude, she said, the quiet with nothing but the sounds of the sea washing against stone. Her mind was free there.” 

Thea’s face looks far away, as though the memory of the Indian Ocean is strong enough in her blood that she can sense it too, even generations later. Or maybe her grandmother’s stories were just that powerful. She’d wanted to be a writer, Kevin remembers Thea telling him. Before her family had fled across that same ocean, first to Indonesia and eventually to America.

“One day, she lost track of time while she was playing. She was alone up on one of the parapets when the call to evening prayers sounded, and she started running to get back in time. The sea had been storming, and the stones were wet and slippery. She slipped suddenly as she rounded a corner, and fell over the side, plunging toward the ocean below.

“But even as she tipped entirely off the walkway, a hand caught her by the leg. Seconds later, she was set gently on the beach, safe and sound.” 

It’s a captivating story, but Kevin isn’t really sure where Thea is going with it.

“Who saved her?” he asks. Thea lifts one shoulder. 

“She never saw. She said she was sure she was caught by a human hand, large and strong, but she was carried back to safety faster than humanly possible. She says that all she remembered later was the silhouette of a man, and the smell of smoke.” 

Kevin’s heart is in this throat. He thinks he knows where this is going now, but he needs to hear her say it. 

“Ayeeyo always said she was saved by a Jini,” Thea says, and for a moment Kevin can’t breathe. Thea smiles, small and far away still. 

“In Islam, the Jinn are creatures of an…adjacent existence. There are all kinds of interpretations, of course but in general… they are like humans, subject to the rules of the Qur’an and the judgment of Allah, but they were formed of smoke and fire, not flesh.” Kevin has read about Jinn, of course. But to hear about them from someone who may actually have met one, even second hand – he doesn’t dare interrupt. “They appear human, when they choose to appear at all, but more – larger, stronger, faster. They are difficult for humans to perceive, and their communities can be entirely invisible to us, especially when we are not looking for them.”

“Your grandmother thought the fort was inhabited by Jinn,” Kevin realizes. “That’s what the rumors of haunting were. If the Jinn couldn’t be perceived well, it would have seemed like ghosts, spirits.” 

Thea is spinning a bracelet around her wrist, one Kevin knows was a gift from her father. “The mosque we attended in California was very cosmopolitan,” she says with a rueful smile. “There wasn’t much room for Ayeeyo’s stories of shadow men. But she never stopped believing.”

Kevin’s heart is in his throat when he asks, “and what do you think?” 

Thea is all logic, but she isn’t cold. She understands people innately. She hears the truth of them across languages, despite dialects, through desperation and anger. She knows better than anyone that facts and figures don’t say everything, that there’s always another layer to the story. 

“I think,” she says, curling further into him, “you should tell me more about the X-Files.”

Kevin’s heart is racing; he can feel himself grinning like a fool in the dark. So he tells her.

 

//

 

“Who knew that the X-Files would be what turned you into a workaholic?” Katelyn’s voice breaks Aaron out of the haze he’s been in for the last few hours, probably. She presses a kiss to the top of his head where he’s sprawled on the living room floor of their apartment. It’s past midnight, and she just got in from a late shift at the vet. 

“I’m not a workaholic,” Aaron mutters, despite the evidence. The carpet is littered with papers, either pulled from or pertaining to the X-Files. And he isn’t, really. It’s just that he hasn’t really been sleeping. Katelyn’s been working extra shifts at the vet’s, covering for a co-worker on maternity leave. She’s trying to accrue favors and good will for herself, in case – well. In case. 

“It’s barely even work anyway,” Aaron says tiredly, waving a hand at the mess of papers on the carpet. 

“Mm, and what is it then?” Katelyn asks. 

A good distraction, is what it is. Something to keep Aaron’s mind off of his own future. The empty apartment. The empty spare room. The empty mailbox. 

“It’s a cataloguing system for the X-Files,” Aaron says, rather than literally any of that. “I got tired of having to ask Kevin where every single thing I was looking for was, so I started organizing it. But the neither the Dewey or Library of Congress system were really designed for cataloging thousands of works on the supernatural and extraterrestrial. So I’ve been creating an adapted system with more useful categories. Not to mention the primary documents and artifacts.” Oh god, the artifacts. Trying to make a reasonable filing system for those is a nightmare. A very distracting nightmare though, which was the whole point, so Aaron is keeping at it. 

“Nerd,” Katelyn says fondly. Then she glances at the clock again and sighs, settling down beside him against the front of the sofa. Aaron gives in and leans back too. She’s the perfect height for him to slouch against her shoulder, his head tucked comfortably beneath her cheek. 

“What if the letter never comes?” Aaron asks hoarsely. Outside, the bleary heat of the Virginia Spring night presses beads of condensation against the darkened windows. 

“It’ll come,” Katelyn says softly, tightening an arm around his shoulders, and Aaron’s whole body sags against her. “It’ll come, and we’ll be approved, and we’ll start to build our family. I promise.” Inside the apartment, the clock on the wall ticks on, soft and inexorable, steadier than a heartbeat.

Real distraction comes soon in the form of a new case, one that takes them to the tiny upstate New York town of Johari on the trail of a mysterious kidnapping and double homicide. Kevin, for once, isn’t crying alien, but clearly he thinks there’s something going on here. Honestly, Aaron is inclined to agree. 

“Okay, run me through it one more time,” Aaron says from the passenger seat of the car, somewhere near the New York/Pennsylvania border. 

Kevin drums his fingers on the steering wheel, doing the weird thing where he scrunches up his whole face in a futile attempt to slide his sunglasses back up his nose. “Yesterday, two officers on a routine patrol came across a young boy wandering on the side of the road. It seemed like he had run away from home, so they had him get in the car and took him back to the statin while they figured out where he was from, all that.” He finally gives up with the face things and ducks his head into his shoulder to push his glasses up. 

“You know, taking your eyes off the road like that seems more dangerous than just taking a hand off the wheel,” Aaron tells him. Kevin’s eloquent response it to take a hand off the wheel to flip him off. “Okay, okay, keep going.”

“Anyway.” Kevin pauses for dramatic effect. “They were about ten minutes out from the station when – this is all from radio transcripts – the boy changed. The officer said he looked in the rearview and suddenly the kid looked completely different, like he was deformed. The pictures they took when they got to the station should be in the file.” 

They are. The boy in the photos is, well, unfortunate is the word that comes to mind, though Aaron knows that isn’t very polite. His whole face is swollen with what have to be tumors, and even the underlying bones don’t seem to be shaped quite right. His hair thin and patchy, to the point that he looks more like a movie prosthetics project than a real boy. Aaron went to medical school, he’s seen some of the weirdest shit the world of human illness had to offer, or at least read about it extensively. This is…possibly the worst he’s ever seen. 

“And you said when the officers picked him up, they thought he was a completely average little boy,” Aaron says, disbelieving. This isn’t the sort of thing that can be covered with a baseball cap or some clever make up. 

“They insisted on it, yeah,” Kevin says. “They noticed the change around when they crossed the line into town.” Not that the officers in question are around to interrogate because – well, that’s why the two of them are here. Only a couple of hours after getting the boy to the station, two equally disfigured adult men armed with shotguns had burst in, shot both of the officers, and whisked the boy away into the night. 

“So if not aliens, what are you thinking?” Aaron asks, still staring at the photos. The men and boy look like they survived a nuclear holocaust, but at least Kevin seem to agree they didn’t come from outer space. 

“Since when are you interested in my theories?” 

“All bullshit was grass once,” Aaron says without looking up, flipping through the last pages of the meager file, ignoring the bemused glance he feels Kevin throw him. He snaps the file shut and closes his eyes. There’s still over an hour left in the drive. Maybe he can finally get some goddamn sleep. 

Aaron does manage to doze the rest of the way to Johari, and when they arrive at the station the mood is surprisingly easy, considering all the murder. Aaron doesn’t envy the officers who just lost two of their own, but if it’s the shock of it that makes them more amicable to the FBI’s presence than usual, he’s not going to look this gift horse in the mouth. 

“Chief Arnold Bloom. Glad to have you here, of course,” the Chief tells Aaron over a firm handshake. He looks exactly how Aaron would expect the chief of police from a small town in the mountains of upstate New York, or maybe one from a movie, right down to the mustache. They’ve just finished setting down the single box they have for the case so far in the spare office they’ll be using as their base of operations. “You fellas from New York too?”

“Quantico,” Kevin offers absently from halfway across the room, already pinning pictures and documents up on the bulletin board. 

“Headquarters, huh? To what do we owe the honor?” Bloom asks, not without a note of suspicion. Good instincts, then. Aaron decides he likes him. 

“Agent Day and I have a bit of a specialty in… odd cases like this,” Aaron explains. “Things other people might be tempted to claim are impossible, or even supernatural.” He neatly avoids that it’s usually Kevin himself pointing toward the supernatural. Or extraterrestrial. Whatever, no need to ruin a perfectly good start. 

“I don’t know about supernatural, but odd is definitely a word for it. That and a goddamn tragedy,” Bloom says, face falling. Aaron is murmuring his condolences when something Bloom said earlier clicks into place. 

“Wait, you asked if we were from New York, too,” Aaron realizes. “Is there already a team here?” 

Kevin’s head jerks up. “There was no team sent from the New York office,” he says, frowning in confusion. 

“Well, just one agent,” Bloom says with a shrug. Then he leans in conspiratorially. “And between you and me, you fellas are much more friendly. The other guy seems like a real stuck up bastard.” 

Kevin’s face goes white, then green, and it only takes Aaron a second to catch up to what he’s thinking. 

“Kev, there’s no way that-“

“There’s the rat bastard now,” Bloom mutters, jerking his head toward the door. Aaron turns, and his stomach drops like a stone. 

 

//

 

Kevin wants to run, but he’s frozen in place. He wants to scream, or maybe cry. He wants to throttle the man in front of him, and his whole body is shaking in terror. He wants to sink into the floor, or possibly just die and get it over with. 

He wants to _go home._ He’s not sure he wants to know what he means by that. It takes all of his willpower to hold his left hand still at his side. 

“Kevin, my old friend!” A fine-boned hand claps down on his shoulder. “It is so good to see you.” Riko’s face splits open in a viper’s grin. 

//

 

Weirdly, Aaron’s first thought upon meeting Riko Moriyama is _Jesus, Andrew would murder this guy on sight._ His second thought is that he’s shorter than Aaron had imagined, although there’s definitely no way he’s going to say so. 

“Mr. Moriyama,” Aaron says forcefully, so that Riko has to either ignore him in front of Bloom or turn to face him. Riko does turn reluctantly, face pulled in a sneer he’s barely bothering to hide. Aaron sticks out a hand. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” 

Riko accepts the shake with obvious distaste. “Is it one?” he asks coolly. “And that’s Agent Moriyama, to you.” 

That is…not good news. 

“When were you reinstated?” Kevin blurts, and Aaron could smack him for the way it jerks Riko’s attention back around. 

“Last week,” Riko says. “Sorry I couldn’t share the good news sooner. But I am so glad I got to tell you in person.” Riko takes another step toward Kevin, placing a hand lightly on his crossed arms. Even Bloom is regarding him with naked suspicion. 

“Kevin,” Riko says silkily, “I’m back. We can work together again – Bureau’s best and brightest, remember? You don’t have to huddle in your basement with this under-qualified fool anymore.” 

On any other day Aaron would be insulted, but right now he can’t be bothered. There is a part of him, probably the part that spent his young adulthood around Andrew, that is itching to start a fight. The part of him that grew up with his mother knows better. 

“Chief Bloom, have you considered the possibility that-“ Aaron starts, but Bloom cuts him off before he can even get going.

“Hold on a minute there,” Bloom says. “I owe you an apology for letting you fellas drag yourselves here all the way from Virginia for no good reason when we already had a federal agent on the case from the New York office. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to head home.” 

“What?” Riko and Kevin say in unison. Riko takes a step toward Bloom, and Kevin sags, gaze skittering around the room like he isn’t sure where it’s safe to look. 

“I’m sorry,” Bloom says again, hands tucked into his pockets, shoulders rolled forward in a sympathetic gesture Aaron suspects is genuine. “I already have us all set up to coordinate with the New York office, I don’t have the resources to be running shop with any more teams. There’s such a thing as too many cooks, gentlemen, and I think this office hit its limit at one federal agent. I’m sure Agent Moriyama here will provide our little town with all the federal support we need. Agent Minyard, Agent Day, you boys just head on home.” 

There is dead silence in the little spare office. Bloom is holding firm. Riko looks venomous. Kevin is frozen. 

Aaron takes a risk. “Come on Kevin, let’s go then.” Aaron lets himself sound annoyed. “FBI’s most unwanted, as usual.” He grabs the first thing he can find – the half empty box of papers – and shoves it into Kevin’s arms, startling him into motion. Unfortunately, Kevin’s path to the door takes him past Riko, whose hand freezes him again like a magic trick.

“Kevin is my partner, Chief Bloom,” Riko says, all easy insistence. “We’ve worked together for years. He is welcome to stay and work with me.” Aaron entertains the thought of breaking that hand off at the wrist.

Bloom, however, shakes his head gravely. “Sorry. I have two men to bury tomorrow, and two widows who want answers. I’m keeping this investigation as streamlined as possible, and that means not having to take orders from half the eastern seaboard. We’ve already opened lines with New York, and that’s where we are stopping. I won’t let this investigation get tangled up with Quantico too.”

“Day is with me,” Riko insists. Bloom turns to Kevin. 

“Not the way I understood it,” he says mildly. “What office do you report to again, son?” 

It’s exactly the right thing to say. Kevin blinks. Frowns. 

“I report to Assistant Chief David Wymack, out of Quantico.” 

“Come on then, let’s go,” Aaron says. He offers Bloom his hand. “Sorry for the trouble, Chief. And good luck with your case.” 

“Don’t worry about it kid,” Bloom says. He grabs the door and holds it open for them. “You two get home safe now.” 

Aaron is hustling Kevin out of the station in a blink, striding down the hallway and refusing to glance back. For a horrible moment he is sure Riko is going to follow, but then he hears Bloom say “Why don’t you and I get down to work, agent?” 

They’re out the front door. Aaron snags the keys out of Kevin’s pocket, shoves him into the passenger seat, and peels out of the parking lot like his brother taught him – like they’re running from the devil. 

//

 

Crossing the border into Pennsylvania is like emerging from a long, strange nightmare. The mountain landscape of highway 81 slips by in lagging rolls as Kevin drifts in and out of consciousness, exhausted beyond explanation from the adrenaline crash. He falls asleep fully somewhere around Allentown, and when he wakes again they’re in the middle of Amish country, nothing but cornfields and small farm stands for miles. The events of the morning come back to him all at once, and Kevin shudders. 

He glances at Aaron, silent and focused in the drivers seat. He knows he should say something, but spoken words still feel elusive, and the more he reaches for the right thing to say, the tighter the knot in his guts winds. Eventually he gives up and closes his eyes again, and it isn’t long before sleep reclaims him. 

When Kevin wakes the second time, they’re at a rest stop in – Delaware, maybe? – and Aaron is saying his name. 

“Kevin, wake up.” 

“Huh?” Kevin manages. 

“I gotta piss,” Aaron explains. “You coming in or not?” 

Kevin grumbles but follows, pulling himself together enough to buy a bottle of water and a protein bar while Aaron is in the bathroom. By the time they are back on the road, he almost feels real again, more human than ghost. 

“Just a couple more hours,” Aaron says. 

“We’d be almost home if you’d just taken 95 the whole way,” Kevin points out. 

“We were too far west. And I hate 95, I never take it if I can help it.”

Who knew Aaron had driving preferences? Come to think of it, Kevin’s never seen him behind the wheel before. 

“Why don’t you ever drive?” 

“I don’t if I can help it. Didn’t learn until my senior year of college, and even then I never learned to like it. I take the train to work most days.”

Kevin must have been in a bad way then, for Aaron to take the keys without prompting. At least, Kevin is pretty sure he didn’t ask Aaron to drive. The fact that he can’t really recall the chunk of time in question probably says enough, though. 

Delaware turns into Maryland, and soon enough they’re passing signs pointing them to Quantico. 

“Hey, um, what about the case?” Kevin asks. Whatever his own situation, there are still two dead police officers and a strangely deformed group of unknown individuals up in Johari, and now Kevin and Aaron aren’t there to figure it out. 

“I gave Bloom my card,” Aaron says. “He called while you were asleep. Riko’s staying on, but Bloom’s going to keep us in the loop electronically. He thinks there’s something fishy going on.”

Yeah, Kevin would bet. “You mean besides Riko turning up on this case specifically to get at me?” Kevin asks, shuddering at the memory of Riko’s touch, the way it turned him into stone. 

“Maybe. He’ll send us the case files, witness interview tapes, all that, as it comes in. We can work the case from Quantico.” 

Which frankly, Kevin realizes, is a whole lot more work for Bloom than just having Kevin and Aaron there. 

“So all that stuff about it being too many resources to work with us…that was all bullshit?” 

Aaron makes a frustrated noise. “Obviously, Kevin.” 

Oh. “You got us out,” Kevin murmurs the realization. “You and Bloom.”

“Bloom mostly, he bet me to the punch. To be honest, I was about to start talking about aliens in the hope that he would kick us out for that.” It’s enough to startle a laugh out of Kevin, at least until Aaron shrugs one shoulder and continues, without taking his eyes off the road, “I had no interest in staying and working with that prick either.” 

Fair enough, Kevin supposes. “I’m surprised you didn’t punch him in the face.” 

Now Aaron does turn toward him, and Kevin can’t begin to read whatever is written on his face. “I know better than that,” he says, and somehow Kevin knows he’s talking about more than just the threat of Bureau reprimand. 

While he tries to wrap his head around all of this, Kevin takes a few minutes to go through his phone and finds a string of missed calls and texts from Thea. The oldest text reads _MG says they gave Freako his badge back? What BS? Pls let me know ur ok._

He’s always found Thea’s overuse of text-speak entertaining, since it seems to clash so much with her ruthlessly professional work demeanor. Now that he knows her, it’s no less entertaining, and twice as endearing. Just seeing it makes his heart a little lighter, even if the content sets him on edge. MG. McGruff, a nickname for Wymack. Apparently he reminds her of a cartoon dog from some children’s safety PSA. 

“You told Wymack?” Kevin can’t quite keep the note of accusation out of his voice, but Aaron doesn’t seem to take any offence, for once. 

“Yeah. I wanted to know how that bastard got his badge back, and how the hell we didn’t know about it. Bloom is right, there’s something here we’re not seeing.”

That Riko might be involved in some kind of further conspiracy is more than Kevin even wants to consider right now, not when he’s busy trying to figure out how to never work in New York again. But despite the uncomfortable mix of anger and shame at the thought of Aaron calling Wymack to report Riko’s presence – and undoubtedly Kevin’s subsequent meltdown – it’s for the best that Wymack knows. 

Kevin turns his phone over in his hands. He turns toward Aaron, opens his mouth to say…something. No words come forth. He closes his mouth, turns back away. Turns his phone over again. Shifts uncomfortably in the passenger seat. 

“What?” Aaron finally sighs. What indeed. 

They pass another sign for Quantico. Almost home. “I don’t know…where to go from here,” Kevin admits. Aaron rolls his eyes. 

“Call your girlfriend,” he suggests. “She’s been blowing up your phone all afternoon. If you go back to sleep and it keeps ringing, I’m throwing it out the window.”

It’s a completely empty threat; they’re almost back anyway. Still, Kevin pulls up the last missed call from Thea and presses the button to dial. 

“Kevin?” She’s as tense as he’s ever heard her, almost frightened. “What the hell is going on?”

“I’m not sure.” Kevin laughs through the giddy relief the sound of her voice, even frightened like this, sends through him. “Do you have any plans for dinner tonight? I – it would be good to see you.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, Kevin swears he sees Aaron smile. 

He and Thea do have dinner that night, at Kevin’s apartment. By mutual agreement, they don’t talk about New York much. They talk about the new art exhibit her mother is curating, and about the most recent foreign dignitary Neil Josten was unable to help himself from insulting. Apparently, Thea has finally met the elusive other Minyard in her most recent meeting with Legal. 

“You wouldn’t believe it, but you got the more personable of them,” Thea tells him. Kevin thinks about what Aaron has told him about his brother. _I’d die for him, but I think he’d kill me himself if I said we were friends._ Not-friends is still family, Kevin supposes. He wonders if they should have Neil and Andrew around for dinner. Maybe Aaron and Katelyn would come too. When he suggests it to Thea, her eyes widen with wicked mirth. “I would pay to see that dinner,” she tells him. Kevin might just have to ask. 

The next week is spent quietly working the Johari case from the X-Files. It doesn’t take more than scratching at the surface before it’s obvious that there’s a lot more to the whole thing than meets the eye, all of it shady. As it turns out, there’s an old facility just a couple miles North of town that was used for classified military experiments in the sixties. Officially, all operations has totally ceased by ’84, If Kevin had to hazard a guess, he’d go out on a limb and say that something is still going on there. 

There aren’t very good records of what actually went on in the facility, of course. Everything is classified at the highest level, and Kevin knows neither he nor Aaron have any real hope of getting themselves read in. They pass along what little they find to Bloom anyway, but Riko and the new York office “officially” close the case pretty quickly without offering much in the way of solutions. 

It’s a comfort to return to Quantico and to routine, but Kevin still feels on edge all week, unable to entirely shake that grip on his shoulder, the cruel gleam in those sharp dark eyes. Maybe it’s that Riko’s name is all over the communications with Bloom. Maybe it’s the looming 3-year anniversary of the night that changed everything. Maybe Riko is just always going to take time to shake. 

Wymack comes down to check their progress mid-week. Kevin catches him up on what they’ve found so far, and what they haven’t. Wymack shares his frustrations; he has higher security clearance than Kevin, but just because he could be read in on the situation surrounding the ‘closed’ military facility in Johari doesn’t mean anyone will be willing to do it.

“Need-to-know basis only,” Wymack scoffs. “But the place is still connected to the power grid.”

“The locals say there’s a hum,” Kevin agrees. There’s only a small population that actually lives in the pocket of cleared forest near the facility. Town proper, including the police station, are located about five miles down the mountain. “Bloom suspects the kid and the shooters came from the mountain community. Seepage into the ground water from the facility could start to explain the deformations.”

“Except nothing like that’s ever been reported,” Wymack points out. “It’s a pretty insular community, from my understanding, but the cops do patrol through it with some regularity, and they’ve never seen anything like it. Also doesn’t explain why he looked perfectly normal when they picked the boy up.” 

“I have an idea about that,” Kevin admits. “The facility emits a hum. It could be creating some kind of technical glamour, either to physically disguise the residents, or to confuse the mind enough that their deformities don’t register. Once the cops got outside the radius of the signal, they saw the boy as he is.” 

Wymack gives him a look that tells Kevin exactly what he thinks of the complete lack of, well, any proof to support that theory. Kevin shrugs. “Doesn’t seem like we’re likely to get an explanation at this rate, either,” Kevin says. “Not with-“ he stops, runs a frustrated hand through his hair. Across the desk, Wymack lowers himself into a chair. They’ve only known each other for a few years, really. Maybe that’s why Kevin always feels like a kid again under his father’s sharp, knowing gaze.

“How you holding up?” he asks. Kevin doesn’t answer, just lowers his face into his hands, thumb rubbing at the old scar on his cheek, his earliest gift from Riko’s rage. “Kid,” Wymack’s voice is gruff but gentle, “Kevin. Tell me what’s going on.” 

Kevin shakes his head against his hands, feeling a lump beginning to form in his throat. See, this is why he hasn’t been talking or thinking about it. Because when he does _this_ happens. He breaks. And that’s not fucking productive at all, so he’d rather not, thank you. Not when Aaron could come back from lunch at any minute. Definitely not in front of his father and boss. 

He can’t explain it anyway. He doesn’t know how to describe the way his whole body feels tense all the time. It feels like there’s always something just over his shoulder, or around the corner. Even going through his daily routines feels like taking the stairs in the dark, groping for handrails, not quite sure where the floor will be each time he takes a step. Thea’s basically moved in, and that’s pretty much the only reason he’s been able to shut the alarms in his brain off at all at night, but he still hasn’t really been sleeping. 

“I feel like I’m just waiting for him to show up here,” Kevin admits, raising his head, finally putting words to the fear that’s been living unnamed in his ribs for days. “Every time the door opens I think it’s going to be him. That he’ll come here and say the bosses in New York have approved my transfer, and I’m all set to come back to New York and work with him.” 

Kevin’s hands rub furiously at each other. He takes a deliberate breath and stills them. “I’m afraid I’ll go with him.”

Wymack’s expression hardens into something fierce, and for a second Kevin can see the young man he must have been when Kayleigh had fallen for him, arrogant and uncouth and determined to change the world. 

“They might talk big in New York City, but I outrank every fucker in that building, and I’m not letting you go anywhere. Got it kid?” 

“I’m 32,” Kevin protests weakly, like that hadn’t been exactly what he’d needed to hear. Wymack rolls his eyes, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair. 

“I know I got into the game late, but you are never going to stop being my kid, Kevin,” he says, quieter but with no less conviction. “And you better believe that means keeping you safe any way I can. If he tries to come for you, he will fail. I promise.” 

There isn’t much more to say after that. Aaron comes back from lunch and eyes the two of them carefully, clearly sensing the fragile atmosphere in the room. Wymack looks like he has something more to say, but looks at Aaron and swallows it. Kevin is glad – he has a feeling it was something about the looming 3-year deadline. It’s the last thing he wants to deal with right now, on top of everything else. 

“I’ll leave you two to it, then,” Wymack says, rising and squeezing awkwardly past Aaron in the aisle between stacks, narrower than usual today – they seem to keep shifting when Kevin isn’t looking. He nods at Aaron “tell Katelyn hello for me.”

“Sure Chief,” Aaron says, passing one of the coffees in his hands over to Kevin. It’s hot through the paper and smells comfortingly of espresso. Wymack leaves them, and he and Aaron work in mostly companionable silence for the rest of the day. 

//

 

Aaron’s just walking in the door to his apartment when his phone chimes with a text from Katelyn, reminding him that she’s picking up an extra night shift again tonight and won’t be home until around 3. Maria’s still out, and they’ve had an emergency surgery come in – a dog that’s been hit by a car – so it’s all hands on deck and she likely won’t be reachable. 

The two of them hadn’t imagined, way back when, when they’d been picking graduate degree tracks and wedding decorations in the same summer, that her job would end up being as crazy of a schedule as his. Of course, back then Aaron had still thought he was going to end up working in emergency human surgery, so things had gone a bit differently for both of them, but still. 

Aaron sighs and settles in for another night alone in the apartment. He does some paperwork, cleans a little, and by the time eleven rolls around realizes he’s forgotten to eat dinner. There’s a Tupperware of leftover pasta and vegetables in the fridge, and he sticks a bowl in the microwave before remembering he didn’t get the mail either. He walks idly to the box, grabs today’s bundle of bills and junk mail, and rifles through it on the walk back. 

He’s back in the kitchen when he sees it, tucked between a Target flyer and an appointment reminder from the dentist, and his breath catches in his throat. He barely hears the microwave go off. He pulls out his phone and dials Katelyn, but it goes straight to voicemail. He should wait for her. He should. 

He eats his dinner without tasting it, staring at the envelope marked _Virginia Department of Social Services._ He loads the bowl into the dishwasher, contemplates a beer, decides against it, and then he can’t wait any longer. Kate would tell him to open it. His hands are trembling as he undoes the deal on the envelope. 

_Mr. and Mrs. Minyard,  
The Department of Social Services of the Commonwealth of Virginia are pleased to inform you that you have been approved for…_

Aaron blinks, gasping out a shuddery exhale in the silence of the apartment. They are going to be – oh god. It’s really happening. Aaron needs to talk to someone before he bursts. Of all fucking times for Kate to be unavailable. He pulls out his phone and stares at the contact list for a long blank moment, then presses the first name at the top before he can overthink it.

His brother picks up on the first ring. “Aaron?” 

“Andrew,” Aaron says on an exhale. There’s a moment of silence. 

“You called me,” Andrew says archly, when he’s apparently had enough of it. “It’s late. Is something wrong?” Aaron shakes himself slightly, looking back down at the letter still clutched in his trembling hand. 

“No, I – we got it,” he says. “They approved us, to be foster parents.” Saying out loud is as terrifying as walking into that final interview had been. They’re going to be parents. Parents to real live kids. Kids that they’re going to love and who are going to need them and drive them crazy and hopefully love them back. It’s completely overwhelming. 

“You just found out I take it,” Andrew surmises. 

“Yeah.” Another silence. 

“And you called me rather than your wife?” 

Aaron almost laughs. “I tried her first, asshole. Voicemail, I think she’s in a surgery. Dog got hit by a car or something. I’ll call her back after.” 

“I see.” 

Now that it’s out there, Aaron isn’t entirely sure what else to say. It’s not like he expected any reaction in particular out of Andrew, not thanks or praise or anything like that. But they’re family, more so than Aaron had once dared hope they ever would be. Now Aaron’s family is going to be growing and, by association, Andrew’s will be too. 

“I just, wanted you to know,” Aaron says haltingly. “since you and Neil are going to be be uncles.” Andrew makes an inquiring noise. “We, uh, we specifically asked they pair us with kids who are eligible for adoption. We want to give them a permanent home, you know? Build a family.” Well. “More of one.” 

“I knew what you meant,” Andrew says dryly, but here’s more warmth in his tone than Aaron is used to hearing. “How much are you freaking out right now?” 

Now Aaron really does laugh, shaky but true, loud against the kitchen tile. He walks to the living room and collapses on the couch. “Like you wouldn’t believe. The Commonwealth of Virginia thinks I can be a parent, Andrew. What the fuck.” 

“You did tell them you wanted to be one,” Andrew points out. “If you have changed your mind, you can take it back.” Aaron doesn’t take offense at the light warning. Yes, he’s freaked out, but doesn’t everyone when the theory of kids turns into an actual reality? It doesn’t mean he doesn’t want this with his whole heart. 

“I’m not taking it back,” he tells Andrew. 

Aaron lets that hang there and just breathes, relaxes into the couch and the idea of… all of this. He almost forgets he’s waiting for Andrew to respond until Andrew says quietly, “Good.” 

They hang up not long after that, though not before Neil is filled in on the situation and cheerfully threatens to teach Aaron’s future children all the foreign swear words he knows if they have him babysit. 

“You won’t fuck this up. Your wife won’t let you and neither will I,” Andrew offers quietly as they say goodbye. It’s as close to comforting as Andrew ever gets, and Aaron ends the call feeling unexpectedly lighter. 

Katelyn, however, still isn’t answering her phone, and when he calls the front desk they inform him not to expect her to be available for several hours. There’s been two more emergencies since her shift started, and a couple of animals are pretty touch and go. Aaron looks forlornly at the clock, approaching midnight, then at the bedroom door, but he knows he won’t be able to sleep. 

Instead, he opens up his laptop again, figuring he can get some more paperwork done as long as he’s awake. There’s always more paperwork to do. When he does he sees he has an email from Kevin. It’s routine, just regular case work, but it’s the time stamp that catches his eye – only five minutes ago. He pulls his phone back out and taps out a text. 

_Why r u still working?_

The response comes within a minute. << _Can’t sleep. Could ask u the same._ >>

_Can’t sleep either. Kate at work til 3. Was gonna do some paperwork as long as I’m being an insomniac. At least couches are comfier than our desk chairs right?_

His phone is silent for a few minutes, and Aaron thinks maybe Kevin has gone to sleep after all. Then it pings again. 

<< _…Im actually at the office...finished my report though so idk what I’m doing here tbh._ >>

Aaron knows Thea has been staying with Kevin since they got back from New York. He also knows Thea is out of town tonight. Aaron’s not sure why Kevin feels safer in their basement office than he does in his own apartment, but he still doesn’t like the idea of him being there alone in the middle of the night. 

_Feel like helping catalogue? I just started in on Amer. Military and Gov. Can file Johari away while were at it._

<< _Don’t know ur system yet. Too nerdy_ >>

Yeah, except Aaron’s already made up his mind not to let Kevin do this on his own. _Ik. Ill be there in a few. Make coffee, the good stuff._

With that, Aaron texts Kate to let her know where he’s going and grabs up his bag where it’s still sitting by the front door. He leaves the letter in the middle of the kitchen table, glances back at it just once from the doorway, and heads back to the X-Files. 

The night guard Henry lets him in with an amused wave when he arrives. “Can’t keep away, either of you, huh? Day’s here too you know.” 

“What do you think I’m doing here, Henry? Someone’s gotta keep an eye on the guy.” Except that’s not quite true; they look out for each other. Aaron heads toward the elevator, then doubles back. “Hey, there’s a chance Kate might call the desk. Send the call down would you?” 

“Sure thing.” 

The basement is quiet when Aaron makes his way around the stacks, and he almost laughs when he sees Kevin’s hulking form hunched over on the floor, haphazard piles littered around his legs, like some kind of extremely overgrown toddler who got frustrated in the middle of homework. He’s frowning at the folder in his hands, but when he looks up and sees Aaron the relief in his expression is visible. 

“I don’t understand this system,” Kevin says, almost petulant, which doesn’t doing anything to dispel the similarity to a toddler. “There are like a hundred categories. And then the sub-categories. And why can’t I just put the newspapers with the books?” 

“Because they’ll turn into a crumpled mess,” Aaron says, throwing his bag onto a chair, grabbing the requested coffee off his desk, and coming over to sit among the madness with Kevin. He wasn’t able to think of anything but the letter on the whole drive to the office, and he still feels vaguely detached from reality. “And there are only twenty five categories. I can make a print out if you want, tack it to the wall like a middle school library.”

“Rude,” Kevin complains, but he looks more relaxed than when Aaron walked in, so that’s something. Aaron hauls the Johari box toward himself and begins leafing through it. 

“Obviously, most of this wants to go in with case files. But some of the research might want to be copied and double filed so it’s easier to reference separately. I’d say put it in American Military and Government.”

“No category for miscellaneous deformities?” Kevin asks.

“Not as a physical filing location, no. It wouldn’t make a coherent category given the general scope of your collection. I’ll add a cross index to the listing on the computer though, that’s a good idea.” Aaron pulls out his laptop to do just that. When he looks up, Kevin is gaping at him. “What? Just because you were joking doesn’t mean I didn’t have an answer.” 

He opens up the cataloging software and works on making a listing for the Johari file. He puts the primary index tag as American Military and Government, but adds an additional index for deformity – human, and then, as an afterthought, deformity – general. He feels a shadow at his back and looks up to Kevin leaning over his shoulder, peering at the screen. “Am I gonna have to walk you through all of this too?” 

Kevin grimaces. “I mean, yeah. How else am I supposed to keep using this system once you’re gone?” 

The night skips like a scratched record. Aaron saves his work and carefully closes his computer, turning to look at Kevin more fully. 

“When I’m…gone? Am I going somewhere?” Wymack hasn’t said anything, but maybe Kevin knows something he doesn’t. Or maybe he just hasn’t told Aaron yet. Maybe the FBI has finally decided his record isn’t worth it for what he can give them, and _Jesus Christ_ they just got approved for a _kid_ and-

“Well, the six months is almost up,” Kevin says, and Aaron’s thoughts skitter to a halt again. 

“What?” 

“The six month review of the X-Files,” Kevin explains, rubbing uncomfortably at a shoulder. “Once that’s over you’ll be free to be reassigned, to the morgue or with a new partner or, whatever you want, really. Wymack will put in a good word for you. I would too, not that anyone would ask me.” Aaron takes a minute to understand what he’s hearing. 

“Who says I want to be reassigned?” he asks. 

“You’re a good agent,” Kevin says, like it’s obvious; like that explains everything. “You deserve a good partner.” 

“Kevin,” Aaron says slowly. “you are a lot of things. Arrogant, impulsive, the second-best bullshit artist I’ve ever met-“

“Who’s the first?” Kevin wants to know.

“Neil, obviously,” Aaron tells him with an eye roll. “That’s not the point. The point is you’re a lot of things, but a bad partner sure as hell isn’t one of them. Kevin, I came to Quantico one notch above street trash. I never thought I was gonna be some kind of Bureau star. I think…I think maybe I like this work better anyway. Helping people whose problems other people don’t see, that make other people uncomfortable. Maybe this is the work I’m supposed to be doing, you know?” 

Kevin’s staring at him like he doesn’t know quite what to say so fuck it, this is as good a time as any, right? “Yeah for a second there I was worried you were gonna tell me I was out of a job, because Kate and I– we just got approved for foster care.”

“What?” Kevin grins. “That’s amazing!” Suddenly Aaron is being hauled up in an impulsive hug by an awkward giant. It only lasts a second – neither of them are prone to physical displays of affection – but when they let go they’re both grinning. 

“Now, let me show you the filing system.” 

Kevin groans, but pays attention as Aaron opens his computer back up and walks him through setting up files and creating index tags. He points out the different ones he’s assigned the Johari case. 

“Why is Moriyama an index?” Kevin asks, gesturing at the screen.

“I always add an index for other prominent Bureau agents that work a case.” 

“Sure, that’s the Riko tag,” Kevin agrees, gesturing at the link reading _Moriyama, Riko._ “What’s the other one?” ‘The other one’ just says _Moriyama._ Aaron shifts in his seat.

“Well, Tetsuji has his own agent index tag, obviously. But Riko was kind of his protégé. Tetsuji’s, well, dead, obviously, but I figured it might be useful to be able to look at their combined case work. The index doesn’t include cases you worked with Riko.” Aaron clicks the tag. On the screen is a neat pops up a neat list of catalogued files, dated and titled. “And see?” Aaron says, “underneath you can see other places these files have been indexed to. Like this one here is marked _Extraterrestrial_ and _American Military and Government._ ”

“Um,” Kevin offers. Aaron glances up at him. He’s frowning intensely at the screen, and looking a little pale. 

“What Kevin?”

“Is there usually that much…repetition, in the index tags?” 

Aaron looks again, and then again. Oh. How had neither of them noticed before? Well, of course they hadn’t, the cases are spread out across years, states, demographics. But listed together, the amount of overlap is…startling. _Extraterrestrials. American Military and Government. Deformity – General. Possible Cover-up._ Over and over again. Not always all together, but always at least a couple of them, repeated in various combinations over decades. 

Kevin nudges Aaron out of the way with his shoulder, reaches out and types into the “search this index” bar. He types _Day._ It pulls up a fair amount of files, since Tetsuji and Kayleigh worked together often, but it’s the top result that has Aaron re-thinking everything he thought he knew about the X-Files. _Kayleigh Day, Death._ Case agent – _Moriyama, Tetsuji._ Later work by – _Moriyama, Riko._

“Kevin,” Aaron hears himself say faintly. “I think Riko and Tetsuji are covering up an alien conspiracy.”

The silence in the basement goes from comforting to eerie in a moment, and suddenly Aaron is clicking through the various links with an increasing sense of urgency. It’s all right here, right here under their noses, those bastards. 

“Aaron.” 

He stops reading and makes himself turn away form the computer to face Kevin. “Kevin, this is the biggest-“

“I know,” Kevin says. He’s smiling, the most genuine expression Aaron has seen on him in days. “but it’s two in the morning. We’re both exhausted. Go home. Celebrate that letter with your wife. We can do this in the morning.” 

“You’re going to leave too, right?” Aaron has to ask. “You gonna be okay?”  
Kevin’s face twitches in an embarrassed smile. 

“I uh, texted Wymack, actually. Gonna crash at his place tonight.”

Oh. Good for Kevin. “Well, okay. I’ll see you tomorrow then?” 

“See you tomorrow, Aaron.” 

Aaron gets home to a thankfully still-empty apartment. A text from Katelyn tells him she’s on her way home. He takes up the letter in shaking hands and sits carefully on the couch, feeling suddenly like he’s about to vibrate out of his skin. He had pushed most of these feelings aside in favor of dealing with Kevin, and then with the revelations about Riko, but now he’s home and there is only this: the future in his hands, bright and beautiful and terrifying. 

The lock turns, and Katelyn walks into the apartment. She looks as exhausted as anyone coming off a night shift at an animal hospital would, hair beginning to escape its bun, still in her paw print patterned scrubs, but she’s still so beautiful his heart aches. 

“Kate.” 

She startles when she catches sight of him. “Aaron, what are you still doing up?” He stand and goes to her, taking her hands in his, the sweat-damp letter crinkling between them. She looks down, sees the letterhead, and her eyes widen. “Did we-?”

“We’re approved!” Aaron laughs, and Katelyn screeches, throwing her arms around him. She’s shaking all over, or maybe that’s Aaron. Maybe it’s both of them. 

“Ohmigod,” she whispers against him. “We did it baby. Ohmigod _Aaron._ We’re gonna be parents!” 

It’s the middle of the night and he’s just uncovered a harrowing conspiracy, but here in his home, Aaron feels enveloped in warmth. He’s fought his way through worse than anything the FBI can throw at him, and he’s ended up here. With friends. With purpose. With a family he loves, one that’s going to keep growing. The world can bring it on, as far as he’s concerned. He’s ready. 

“I love you,” Aaron murmurs into Katelyn’s shoulder. Her arms tighten around him. He’s laughing, or crying, or maybe both. So is she. 

“I love you too,” she says, hiccupping a little. “Oh god. My mom’s gonna flip.”

“I already told Andrew,” Aaron admits. 

“Of course you did. What did he say?” 

Aaron pulls back so that he can look her in the eye. “That we aren’t going to fuck this up,” he tells her, smiling, reaching up to brush a tear from her cheek. “Also, Neil is never allowed to babysit alone.” 

She laughs, wet and true. “God, of course not.” Her laugh fades into a smile that’s softer. The kitchen light is too bright for the hour and the moment, really, but it doesn’t matter. She’s glowing. “I’m so proud of us, baby.” 

Aaron can’t help it; he pulls her back in. “Me too.” 

 

//

 

“What’s up kid? You look like a spooked horse.” Wymack tells Kevin when he answers the door. Kevin shakes his head silently. He’s still too overwhelmed by the possibilities of what they might have discovered to try to explain it. He steps inside his father’s apartment and lets the door close behind himself. “Are you alright at least?” 

“I’m fine,” Kevin assures him. “I- Aaron and I might have found something, it has to do with Riko. But. Can we talk about it in the morning?” 

Wymack looks at him shrewdly, but doesn’t point out that if Kevin had just wanted to talk in the morning he could have just waited until they were both at the office. He also doesn’t ask why Kevin is here rather than his own apartment, at half past two in the morning no less. He just waves an open hand at the couch does up the lock and deadbolt on the door. 

“I assume you didn’t think to bring a change of clothes?” 

“Uh, no,” Kevin admits. “I-“

“You were planning to sleep in the office,” Wymack realizes. “Idiot. Come on, I’ll get you something to sleep in.”

He disappears into his bedroom, returning a moment later with an armful of blankets and sleep clothes, dumping them on the couch. It’s a familiar pattern, though it’s been a while since Kevin made use of it, and for a moment the déjà vu makes him slightly sick. He hasn’t slept here since the month after the warehouse raid, hand still a mess of stitches, looking over his shoulder at every shadow. 

“I’m gonna go back to sleeping in my own bed now, if that’s alright with you,” Wymack says. He sounds annoyed, but Kevin isn’t fooled – it’s an offer to stay with Kevin, awake or sleeping in the armchair, if Kevin needs it. 

“Go ahead, I’ll be fine,” Kevin says truthfully. “Thanks.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Get some sleep. We’ll deal with whatever this is in the morning.” 

Kevin doesn’t sleep much, but when he does, there are no nightmares to wake him. 

They do talk about it in the morning, Kevin filling Wymack in while they get ready for the day. Wymack’s gaze is sharp as he takes it all in over his coffee, but tired. It isn’t the physical kind of tired, either. 

“So?” Kevin asks when he’s finished. Wymack sighs. 

“You didn’t bring a fresh shirt I suppose?” Kevin shakes his head. “Well at least borrow a tie so you don’t look like you haven’t changed since yesterday. Actually, you know what? Just take one. People keep giving me the stupid things at office Christmas parties, half of mine are still in the packaging,” Wymack says, prodding Kevin toward the closet, where there is indeed a plastic bag half full of ties with the tags still on. Kevin pulls out one in a green and purple pattern and tugs it on. Wymack looks him over and nods in approval. “Let’s go then.” 

He doesn’t actually answer Kevin’s question until they’re in the car and driving. 

“Look,” he says. “I know you’ve got a good head on your shoulders Kevin. I’ve never thought you were crazy. Looking for answers in the wrong places sometimes, maybe, but not crazy. So if you tell me there’s something there with the Moriyamas, I believe you. But we can not go before the board and tell them that two decorated agents, one deceased, have spearheaded a conspiracy the likes of which our government has never seen, to cover up the existence of aliens, as well as experimentation on humans by or with those aliens. We’d be laughed out of the building.”

Kevin slumps in the passenger seat. He feels suddenly drained, and the day hasn’t even started. 

“We’ll talk it over again with Minyard when we get there,” Wymack says.

They do talk it over again with Aaron, and unfortunately they reach the same conclusion as before. Even if Riko is carrying on some kind of legacy and covering up a conspiracy of alien experimentation, up to and possibly including the death of Kayleigh Day, they have nothing. Their only “proof” so far is a pattern of similar index tags in the filing system of the X-Files. Hardly enough to bring a civilian in for questioning, much less an FBI agent. 

“We have to do something,” Kevin insists. “I mean, these cases…some of them are murders. Some are missing kids. Some are patterns of illness and death across whole comminutes. If Riko is covering this up we have to stop him.” 

“Open a case,” Wymack suggests.

“With whose resources?” Aaron asks, not without a point. “The Bureau’s? To investigate one of their own? How are we supposed to keep what we’re doing from upstairs until we have something more concrete? And even if we do, you know the X-Files doesn’t have a good reputation. No one would believe us.” Aaron crosses his arms, looking thoughtful.

“What we need,” he says, “is a way to get someone else digging into Riko’s life for us.” 

Kevin’s stomach curls. Shit. The answer is right there. 

“We have a way to do that,” he says quietly. Wymack goes rigid, understanding immediately, but Aaron just looks confused. 

“What do you mean? Nothing we have here is enough to bring charges.” 

“Not in the X-Files, no,” Kevin agrees. He takes a deep breath, then holds his left hand up to the light, twisting it so the scars catch in the fluorescents. Aaron stares. “If I bring assault charges, the prosecution will be forced to start examining Riko’s past. At worst, it’s a chance to get him behind bars so he can’t do any more cover ups himself. At best, they actually find something and this whole thing gets blown wide open.”

Aaron looks like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. That’s fair, Kevin hardly can either, and he’s the one saying it. “Kevin, you said you didn’t want to do this. You know what bringing charges will mean, you just said it yourself. They’re going to tear into your life, too. Everything will be dragged out into the open. What happens to you then?” 

“I know,” Kevin says. He sounds hoarse and wounded to his own ears. Wymack’s hand comes down on his shoulder, a fierce comfort. “But I did just say it myself, didn’t I? Murders, missing kids, sick communities? There are tens, hundreds of lives hanging in the balance here. Who would I be if I didn’t do this?” 

He goes to wring his hands together, reaching for the now-familiar pattern of scars, but Aaron gets there first, catching his hand out of the air. He takes Kevin’s hand in both of his, thumbs running over the nearly-three-year-old white lines thoughtfully, examining them. Kevin feels raw and seen, so seen.

“If you do this,” Aaron says quietly. “I’ll do whatever I can to help. I’m a medical doctor, I can offer expert testimony on the injuries. If…if you want.” 

His face is calm and serious as he looks up at Kevin, but there’s something terribly vulnerable about the offer. Aaron has been where he’s standing, Kevin realizes. He’s seen firsthand what it will be like, and in his case the defendant wasn’t even alive to give testimony. That he’s offering to relive even a tiny piece of that hell for Kevin’s sake means more than Kevin knows how to tell him. 

It is enough, with his father’s hand on his shoulder and Aaron’s quiet, stubborn resilience in front of him, to give him courage. 

“I’ll do it,” he says; it feels a bit like stepping off a mountain, and a bit like being born. 

They’re really doing this. It’s going to be a long, hellish road, but at the end of it he gets to stop looking over his shoulder for Riko’s shadow. He gets to be free, and he might get to blow open an alien conspiracy in the process. And his friends and family are going to be right there with him. 

He needs to tell Thea. Fuck, he needs to tell Jean. 

“We’ll start the paperwork this afternoon,” Wymack says, using his grip on Kevin’s shoulder to turn him to face him. “Holy hell, am I proud of you, kid.” 

Kevin grins, shaky with adrenaline and probably on the edge of tears. “Thanks, dad.”


	4. Epilogue

“No, no, bring Sophie along, please. Thea’s been dying to meet her.” Kevin assures Aaron, then hangs up the phone and turns to Thea, who is busy tying up her hair and rummaging around the bedroom closet for a scarf to match her dress. 

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asks for probably the fifth time. “I mean, we probably should have told them.” 

“We told them we were having friends over,” Thea says dismissively, standing as she finds one she was looking for and winding it on. She pauses when she catches sight of whatever his face is doing, and snorts out a laugh. “Babe it’s fine, I talked to Neil.”

“You did?” She hadn’t mentioned that.

“Well I didn’t tell him,” she says, a gleeful glint in her eye. “Don’t take away all my fun. But I managed to find out that the four of them have totally not awkward family dinners at least every few months. It’ll be fine. We’re not going to be cleaning up a murder in my kitchen.” 

“It’s my kitchen now, too,” Kevin points out, 

“It’ll be your kitchen when you learn to cook something other than chicken, rice, and smoothies,” she teases, but lets him draw her in by the hand until their foreheads are touching. 

They’d gotten surprisingly comfortable living together on and off in the months following the Johari case. A few weeks ago, when Kevin had started complaining about the hassle of getting to his landlord’s office to re-sign his lease, and that his rent was going up again, she’d suggested he just move in with her. It’s the best thing he’s ever said yes to.

“Hey now, I can also cook potatoes,” Kevin says, smiling. She’s just an inch shorter than him barefoot, and radiant as always. The doorbell rings and she shoves him lightly out of the bedroom toward the door. 

It’s Aaron and Katelyn, their five year old Sophie in tow. She stares at Kevin and Thea with big eyes and hides behind Aaron’s legs, which is almost funny considering she comes up to his waist. She’s been with them for just over a month, and is very much still adjusting, but Aaron’s said they’re already making progress. They asked her if she wanted to come meet their friends tonight, and she said okay. 

Arriving first gives them a little extra time for Sophie to get acquainted with the apartment and with Kevin and Thea, which Kevin thinks is a good thing, and probably intentional on their part. 

It also gives Aaron a moment to quietly slip Kevin a folder – he’s been working on his notes for the trial – and for Kevin to tuck it away to be dealt with later. It’s been three months since Kevin officially brought charges against Riko. The court hasn’t set a trial date yet. The prosecution has been digging into every corner of Riko’s life, and Kevin’s too, as he’d known they would. But Kevin’s getting through it. And with friends around him, it’s possible to put the worry aside for an hour, an evening, to enjoy the things he has.

Kevin is still a little nervous when doorbell rings again, but when it opens to reveal Andrew and Neil, Aaron actually laughs. “Thank god,” he says. 

“Pardon?” Thea asks. Kevin doesn’t think she was hoping for a fight, exactly, definitely not with the kid here, but this clearly isn’t the reaction she was expecting. Aaron looks at her, then glances back at his daughter, who is beginning to peek out from behind his legs. When she catches sight of Andrew and Neil, she makes a small, delighted noise and runs to them, letting Andrew scoop her up with a murmured agreement and settle her against his shoulder. It’s a disorienting sight even to Kevin, who has only met the other Minyard once at this point, and Thea looks outright shocked, but Aaron and Katelyn seem totally unfazed. 

“Sometimes he’s better at getting her to sleep than we are,” Aaron admits, then mutters something under his breath that probably isn’t appropriate for five year old ears, but sounds fond anyway. 

Katelyn smiles. “Is anyone else coming?” 

The doorbell chooses that moment to ring, announcing Jean as the last person to arrive. He lets Kevin make introductions, even shaking little Sophie’s hand where she’s still tucked against Andrew, and Kevin has to resist the urge to snap a picture of all six-foot-four of him bending over two tiny people like that, apprehensive but gentle and surprisingly warm. 

It’s sort of a marvel, Kevin thinks as he looks around at them all, once they’re settled around the table for dinner. He never thought of this as something he’d get to have – a group of friends. A family, in a way. Katelyn’s already invited him, Thea, and Wymack around for Thanksgiving, and it’s only July. When she meets Jean and hears a little bit of his story, she immediately invites him, too. 

“I will think about it,” Jean promises her, before turning on Kevin with an amused expression. “When did you go growing up and making adult friends behind my back?” 

“I bullied him into it,” Aaron says gravely. “Jean, whenever we have this jack-“ Aaron cuts himself off with a glance at his daughter, and the table laughs. “this _buffoon,_ over, you’re welcome to come along. It’ll be a full house. We might have to move soon, actually.” Katelyn slides him a look, and Aaron looks a bit sheepish, like he’s let something slip.

“Oh?” Thea prods.

“It’s not official yet,” Aaron says, after a nod from his wife, “But Sophie has a brother who is in foster care as well. His name’s Matthew, he’s twelve. We’re hoping to have him come to us within the next year, so they can be together again.” Kevin catches Andrew looking at Aaron intensely, and guesses this is the first Andrew has heard of this, too. 

He wonders at what it must mean to them, to be growing a family in this way. One that they’ve chosen, deliberately. To be putting in the work to undo some of what has been done to them, and put good back into the world instead. 

Then again, Kevin thinks, looking around the table, maybe he already knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had so much fun participating in my first Big Bang! Thanks again to the lovely kitshunette for the spectacular illustrations!! Direct link to the illustrations on Tumblr here!
> 
> Questions, love, and reprimands about how many italics I use welcome in the comments! Thanks for reading! <3


End file.
